Falling Up
by amberpire
Summary: "Be careful, Tori. Jade breaks hearts." ;Tori/Cat/Jade;
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately for all of us, I do not own Victorious.**

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_**|Tori|**_

"See you tomorrow, Jade!"

Cat is screaming next to me, grabbing my elbow with both hands. I wince, trying to pry the caffeine driven redhead off of me, but I don't even think she notices her fingernails are about to draw blood. I raise my hand to wave at Jade's back as she ducks into her car, not bothering to reply to us. I sigh - I've come to expect such nonchalance when it comes to Jade. She's just like that, very ... very cold. That brief moment when the play was over, when she hugged me, I knew that was a one time thing, something I would probably never see or feel from her again. Like she cared about anything other than herself, like she was grateful. I'm trying to shrug off the way I still feel about it. I just ... it feels warm inside. It's weird. Maybe because I saw a side of her I didn't know existed? I don't know. Whatever the case, it made me feel almost honored that she even bothered.

Jade is a complicated person with a lot of layers and I have come to understand that fully.

"The play turned out great, didn't it! There were so many people, ohmygosh Tori what if there was a big time producer there and they liked me! Tori ohmygoodgolly I could just die right now, I could just die -"

Her voice turns into high pitched buzzing as we reach my car. She's at the frequency of a pesky mosquito as I drop into the driver's seat, headlights flashing in my mirror as Jade passes us. I watch her turn out of the parking lot, Cat jabbering away as the nosey girl picks through my glove compartment. I start to pull out and interject loudly - "Jade hugged me."

That shuts up Cat really fast. The silence that follows confuses me; Cat isn't exactly known for being surprised. I turn to look at the scarlet-haired girl, her brown eyes wide and almost scared looking as she leans against the passenger door. I jerk my eyes back to the road and then to her again, my confusion settling in my brow. "What?"

"Jade doesn't hug anyone. No one. Only Beck."

She sounds terrified. I look at her again, concerned. She's plucking at the sleeves of her sweatshirt, tugging gray threads out nervously and dropping them on the floor of my car. "Cat? What's wrong? It was just a hug. Jade _can _be nice when she wants to be."

"No." Cat's arms cross hard over her stomach and she falls back against the seat, glaring out of the window. I glance at her again to see her lips pursed, legs crossing. I didn't know Cat could get mad, and it doesn't make sense - what is she so mad about?

"I thought Jade was your best friend?"

"She is. But she's not nice. She's never nice. She hugged you?" Cat twists toward me again, frowning in disapproval from the passenger seat. I nod slowly, eyes on the road.

"Yeah. A quick hug. I think it was her way of saying 'thank you'."

"For what?"

"Helping her with the play? I don't know."

Cat huffs again, and her fingers drift to her lips, tracing them slowly. I get distracted watching her, studying the angry, furrowed lines of her face. Cat's never mad. I don't think I've ever seen her genuinely angry about anything. She's just so light-hearted and ditzy, I never knew she could focus on anything long enough to feel anything but top-layer feelings about it. That might sound mean, but ... Cat's Cat, and she's just like that. I've never really seen any depth to her, just this crazed smile and bright eyes. She's so much like a puppy that I forget she's a person sometimes.

"She doesn't hug me anymore." Cat spreads her hands on her lap and studies them in silence. I frown at the steering wheel as I navigate through the streets.

"Well, that's Jade. She's, you know. She's like a girl Jafar without the beard." It's supposed to be funny, but Cat doesn't laugh. She just glances at me sideways and glares out of the windshield.

"You didn't know Jade before Beck. She used to hug me, and - and other things." Cat's tone is different, weird, almost ... serious? I really shouldn't be driving because I keep looking at her, trying to find whatever is hiding in her brown eyes, the answers to her riddles.

"What kinds of things?"

"Nice things." Cat exhales slowly as if whatever memories she's thinking of soothes her, and she sinks in the seat. Her eyes fall closed but I can see them flickering under the lids as if she's watching a projection. "Really nice things."

I pull into her driveway and park, turning toward her. Is she ... is she trying to tell me her and Jade were romantic? I didn't know Jade liked girls, or Cat, or what in the world Cat is talking about. I remind myself that this is Catarina Valentine I'm talking to, and she's a little odd, and her world is incredibly warped next to mine, so what she's saying might be a lie, or some skewed edition of the truth. Her eyes are still closed, and she swallows hard, shifting her legs against the seat and I reach out carefully, touching her sleeve.

"Cat? Are you okay?"

Cat's eyes open and she snaps them toward me. She sits up, grabbing her purse off the floor. I flinch back, resting my wrists against the steering wheel as she opens the door and steps out. She ducks down before closing the door, biting her lip and studying me with what looks like concern, but almost ... anger, like she's mad at me. I try to say something but she beats me to it, her eyes falling to the concrete.

"Be careful, Tori. Jade breaks hearts."

The door slams behind her and she disappears into her house and I'm left staring after her, not quite understanding what just happened. I drive home with my eyes on the road and my mind somewhere else entirely - in Jade's arms, as they closed around my shoulders and my face was in her hair. She smelled like mango. I still feel weird about it, about her in general, really. She just comes off so cold but ... there was warmth there. It spread in my chest, down my arms and resting in my fingers. I purse my lips as I park in front of my house, feeling the car die beneath me, keys falling into my lap. What was Cat going on about? I thought they were friends, I never got the notion that anything more had occurred between them. Although, Cat did seem genuinely upset if Jade insulted her, which didn't happen so much with anyone else ... it's like Cat only cares about what Jade thinks. I always thought that was because they were best friends, or it came off that way, at least on Cat's part. For Jade, she just seemed to use people when they were convenient, like when I sang at the karaoke bar, and the play. People aren't really people to her, I don't think, they're more like ... props in the production of her life. Things.

I crawl out of the car and into my house, greeting my cheery parents in the kitchen. I'm not in a bad mood, just thinking, so they back off as I pull some food from the fridge and migrate to my bedroom. I lean against the closed door and bring the patch of grapes to my mouth, biting one off. This is stupid. I shouldn't look too much into this because a) Cat never makes sense about anything (she once cried when I used the last of my eraser because she was convinced I had taken away my pencil's only friend) and b) Jade is hardly a friend of mine, she's just kind of ... I don't know, there because she was a part of the group before me.

I shrug off my discomfort for as long as I can, but a half an hour later my grapes are gone and iCarly is over and they come crawling back. I study my phone in silence, chewing my lip and heaving a sigh. Fine. I'll just call Jade and ask. Maybe she'll have some answers for me. I scoop up my phone, dialing her number and pressing it to my ear. I've never actually called Jade before, and the few times we've texted was for homework purposes or finding each other, and suddenly I feel intimidated. It's not like it's my fault - Jade can be absolutely terrifying sometimes. The girl is seriously the Wicked Witch of the West minus the green pigment, particularly on Monday mornings. She's a minefield and no one is ever quite sure where to step, not even Beck, and he's supposed to be some kind of expert or something.

The phone rings for so long I almost hang up, but then there's a rustling noise followed by a very grumpy, "What?"

I swallow. Why was I calling again? I shake my head, stuttering for a few moments before I manage, "Hey, hey, Jade, it's, uh, it's me. Tori."

"Yes. My phone tells me that. It helps me decide whether or not I want to answer."

I pick at my blanket nervously, my mind fluttering a blank white. "Yeah, right, uh, I just, I was calling because, uhm ... Cat was acting weird in the car on the way home and I thought maybe you would know why."

"You're calling me because Cat was acting weird. Have you just met her?"

"No, no." I sigh hard, running a hand through my hair. "Nevermind, I'll just - nevermind, it's nothing."

There's a brief pause and for a moment I think she's hung up on my own stupidity, but then there's a sigh that crackles through the receiver. "What did she say?"

Her voice sounds so deep, so ... concerned, that it catches me off guard for a moment. "Uhm. She, uh, I was telling her that you hugged me after the play was over and she just got all ... weird. Like, weird for her. She said that you don't hug her anymore? That you used to do 'nice things'? I don't know what she meant by that, but then she told me to be -" I stop then, cutting myself off.

_Be careful, Tori. Jade breaks hearts._

It echoes in my head, Cat's eyes heavy as they watched me from outside of the car. I swallow, shaking my head again. "Yeah, that was all. I just was wondering what you thought, I guess. You guys are best friends and everything -"

"I don't have best friends, Tori." It's sharp and shuts me up. "Cat's bordering on mentally unstable, we all know that. She's delusional."

"What did she mean by 'nice things'? What kind of 'nice things'?"

"Is this really any of your business?"

I glare at my bedspread. "Look, I'm the whole reason you even got to fuel your play at all, so many you need to start being a little nicer to me -"

"That's what the hug was for."

"What?" I throw my hands up. "I should feel blessed or something, because you graced me with a hug?"

"Look, Tori. Cat is - she's Cat, okay? She holds on to things, makes them mean more than they really do. Blows them up. Don't stress your pretty little head over someone like Cat."

I frown again. "Someone like Cat? She's a person, Jade."

"Yes, a very messed up and confused person. Goodnight, Tori."

There's a click, then silence. I lower the phone slowly, twisting my lips at the screen. I don't know what I expected. It's not like Jade has ever really been the best conversationalist; when we do talk, she's usually threatening me. I've never gossiped with her about other people, especially not my friends. But Cat, she almost scared me back there in the car, warning me about Jade. It's not like I'm going to trust her with anything.

I sink in my bed, pulling the blankets to my chin. Right?

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**A/N:**_ Hi there. So, here I am again, writing more Victorious femslash. Big surprise. But this one is different, and brand new for me! A love triangle._

_~dunna dunna!~_

_Each chapter is going to alternate POV. Next chapter will be Cat, the one after will be Jade, and then back to Tori. Bear with me here. This will be long and angsty. Eventual romance, and the character filter may change once pairings are established. I'll keep it a surprise for you guys :)_

_I have the next two chapters already written, and depending on the feedback I get from you readers, they might be up within the next few days!_

_Enjoy!_


	2. Chapter 2

_**|Cat|**_

I watch Tori leave from my porch window.

Right now, I'm on a Down. It doesn't happen often. I'm usually Up, Up so much no one can find me because it's happy there. It's safe. Being Up is always safe. Always better than being on a Down. But she pulled me down, Tori. She pulled me down and she doesn't even know it. I peel back the curtain and watch her car lights fade around the corner. My breath fogs up the glass and I draw a big X. X on you, Tori, for putting me on a Down. I hate them.

My feet pull me into the living room. Mom is there, curled up in the corner of the couch with her chin in her hand and her eyes on the TV. She waves at me and she's talking, asking me if I had a good time, and I give her a smile. I'm good at that, smiling when I don't mean it, when I don't actually feel like smiling. That's the point of being an actress, right? To do stuff when you don't feel it. It's probably why I even got into Hollywood Arts. You have to be good at pretending, at playing along, at pushing fake feelings forward and the true ones behind. Smile, turn, bat the eyelashes. That's what every trainer I've ever had tell me to do, and I'll be in lights.

I like lights.

I tell my mom that as I turn up the stairs and she just shakes her head and laughs at me. She thinks I'm funny and weird but she's used to it, used to the things I say. I think about lights as I take the stairs up to my room, dropping my purse on the floor and shutting the door. I lean against it, eyes skittering across the bright walls. It's pink and soft and makes me feel better, really, and I drag my feet to the bed and fall. It smells like vanilla here, like home, and I close my eyes and breathe it in. My bed. My house. I can be Up here, if I try hard enough. I can forget about Tori and what she said in the car. I can keep pretending. I've been doing it for so long now, it just feels like me, like it's who I've always been.

But it's not. I wasn't always this. This is all Tori has seen, but everyone else, they knew me when I wasn't quite so ... eccentric? Everyone else, like ... like Jade. Jade knew me. Jade put me on the highest Up and then dropped me to the lowest Down.

Sometimes my heart hates her. I fight with it a lot.

I roll over on my back and stare at the ceiling, my hands on my stomach. I don't like thinking about it. Her. Us. Then. It makes me heart, makes me Down and I just ... I just don't want it. But sometimes it's like it's the only thing that makes me smile at all anymore. Her. Us. Then.

_"Our little secret, Catarina. You and me. Right here."_

I touch my ear. She used to speak into it so softly, so gently, before her voice grew all of those hard edges and hurt me. Her lips had traced the lobe of my ear and brushed over my cheek. I remember her breath. It was cherry, because we had had suckers right before, and her hair was mango, and my bed was a sea of smells, of her. Us. Then. That was an Up, and I feel myself lifting the longer I think about it. I breathe in, feel my chest expand, and imagine her filling the space between my spine and my heart. I remember her lips on other places, her fingers on the inside of my elbow, I remember laughing against her mouth and her taking me all in like she wanted to be nowhere else.

And then I'm hurtling, spiraling, falling falling falling Down Down.

I sit up so fast I feel like my chest tears and it sounds like paper ripping when I breathe in, like I forgot how, and I stare at the sheets and want to burn them, want to set the whole place on fire because she was here this is where she touched me and looked at me and laughed with me and smiled and breathed, she breathed here, right against my neck, with my pulse she was my pulse she was everything she was here she was Up we were Up and now everything, everything, everything, it's wrong, it's wrong.

I grab my pillow. I think about throwing it, hurling it right against the wall, but I just press my face to it and scream as quietly as I can manage. I feel like my limbs are going to break off and abandon me, walk right out of the window. I would if I could, I'd walk right out of me and bury myself in the sky. I'm tired of it here in my bones because they always remember her before she was this person, before she was ice, I remember her when she wasn't frozen. I remember the forest she used to be, and now she's the Sahara and everyone hates sand. I know I do. I miss the flowers in her eyes, the leaves in her hair, the song of the wind when she talked to me.

I don't like acting anymore, and it's because of her, it's because she turned my hobby into my life and I don't want it, I don't want any of it anymore. It started here, it ended here, with her hands on my cheeks and she said _I can't I can't_ and I said_ you can but you won't _and then she kept using the words _just friends_ like they were supposed to be greater than or equal to what we were, what we use to be, what we were supposed to be, but just friends never was and never will be better than Jade kissing me.

My lips burn. I want to rip them off. I hate them. I bite the pillow until it hurts my teeth, my gums, my whole jaw. If the pain is loud enough it might drown her out. She floods me. Drowns me. Down down down. It's like I can never be Up again. It's impossible. I can just, I can't, I can't, she is a series of can'ts and won'ts and _my dad, Cat, my dad_.

I always hated her dad.

And now Tori, she's ... she doesn't understand the significance of anything gentle coming from Jade. Jade isn't gentle with anyone but Beck. Not me anymore, not anyone else, just ... just Beck. Why would Jade hug Tori? I thought they hated each other. I don't ... it's not fair. Tori doesn't deserve it. Tori would never hold dear that kind of gesture like I would. I live in the ghost Jade left here, in her whispers, the memory of her fingers walking on me, in the Ups she gave me and made a home. She listened to my nonsense and told me it wasn't. She hugged me and I knew how special that was and Tori will never understand that. She will never grasp that like I would.

It's so hard being Jade's friend, it's hard singing with her, acting with her, going to school with her every day and cracking my lips into a smile for her benefit. It's hard not punching Beck right in the stomach because he has Jade and I don't. Did I, even? I don't know. She said I didn't.

_"My dad, Cat. I can't do this."_

No, no, there was a difference. She wouldn't do this, she refused to, but she could. She had a heart and she could, she just didn't. She didn't let it do what it was meant for. She put me in a Down and her in a Down and now she's Beck's Jade and I'm Cat's Cat which is no one. No one. Sometimes I'm numb, but then things happen - Jade kisses Beck in the hall, Jade hugs Tori, and I remember that I know how to feel and then I feel a lot, all at once, too much Down Down Down.

I'm helpless. I've accepted that, at least. I know there's nothing I can really do over here because Jade is stubborn and she won't ... she muted her heart, because I know it's still talking in there, mumbling against her ribs, but she shut it up because she didn't like the way the words felt in her torso. I remember listening to the words, though. I remember the muscles of it pumping against my ear, saying, _CatCatCat_.

It was awesome. It was real. It felt like falling, falling Up.

I drop my pillow on the floor and stand up. I need to shut her up. I need to shut everything up. Tori in the car, Jade's ghost, my stupid head the echo that comes with Down it all just needs to be quiet shut up shut up I don't want to hear her heart talking to me through the walls anymore.

I move to the front of my room and spin. I spin until the pink walls and the rainbow blankets and the TV and my computer and the dolls and the toys blur into one big mess, flying past my eyes, becoming one before me. But that's not fast enough, not loud enough, and maybe if I spin fast enough I'll go Up, I'll go Up and Up like one of those fairy Barbies that fly and spin and I thought they were so beautiful when they fell, all sparkles and plastic wings.

But I don't sparkle and I don't have wings but I do feel like I'm flying for a minute. I spin until my face is red, until my feet catch on themselves and I fall to the floor with a loud thud. My butt hurts and the room goes on without me, twirling and twirling and I'm in orbit, I'm the center of the universe and my room is the galaxy, the stars are the white spots in my vision and I suck in a breath I didn't know I was holding, my lungs thanking me as the world slows down.

My universe dies.

Tori better look both ways before she crosses this. Sometimes things come out of nowhere.

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**A/N:** _Thanks for the amazing feedback on the first chapter, you guys! Because I have no life, here is the second. The third will be up depending on time/school/homework, etc., but as always, the more reviews I receive, the more apt I am to put aside such pesky things and write fanfiction instead._

_Ciao!_


	3. Chapter 3

_**|Jade|**_

I like music. Music puts up walls, loud and thick. Everything else blips out.

It's great. It's fucking great.

My phone is still balanced in my fingers, dangling off the tips. I roll it back and forth across my palm, eyes closed, music, music. I feel it pulse from my ears to my brain, down my spine and spreading across my limbs like fire. Like wonderful, hot, sizzling fire. It settles. It burns. It scars. The words are angry, the instruments are violent, and maybe twenty years from now my hearing will be shit but I don't even care because this, this is like nirvana.

I feel like Buddha and I would have been pals.

The song ends and the fire goes out. I peel back my eyelids, plucking the iPod headphones from my ears. They fall into my lap, the next song filling the space between my legs. I let my eyes fall lazily over the expanse of my room; it's wide and dark, my blankets a sea of black and dark blue. I have a couple of shelves, most of which are decked with (probably weird) things I have found. Like that guy's fatty clump I got from the hospital. Man, that thing is wicked. Fucking love it. Mom wanted to paint my walls purple, but I would rather cut out my eyes than wake up to Barney walls every morning, so they're white. Stark white.

_Like my soul_, says the poet.

I glance at my phone, frowning at it. Tori's phone call was ... weird. I mean, I don't talk to her much outside of school. She's just kind of convenient to me sometimes. Like, paying for my play, for example. The girl attracts luck, I don't know how it works. What was even more weird, though, was the subject of the call - Cat? Of all things, Tori calls me to gossip about Cat? Not Beck, not my juicy dating life, no sex questions, no 'do you think Andre likes me insert stupid giggle here' - no, she was curious about stuff Cat was going on about.

I think I want Tori to be stupid and insincere so badly that I forget that she isn't stupid or insincere. That's about as close to complimenting as I get with her - or anyone, really. But Tori's ... I don't know, she's just Tori. She's just there. She's not as funny as she thinks she is, and she's not smooth or suave or all that cool, but I tolerate her because, well, everyone else does and I don't have much of a choice. Still, to call me and talk about Cat ... it's odd. I don't talk about anything to anyone, really, other than Beck, and even he gets on my nerves sometimes, what with his 'that's nice, let's make out'.

People think I'm some sex addict or something when it's him with the permanent boner.

I frown at the opposite wall of my room. Cat ... I don't like thinking about her. It brings up all of these old pieces of memory that I just ... I just don't. They sneak up on me sometimes, at night, when I'm alone and in the space between asleep and awake, I just smell her out of nowhere and it hits me like bricks. The girl is like candy, and she sticks with you even after it's been awhile since you've had it and she's just so sweet. She's carved her way into me like a cavity and you can't just up and quit and -

Okay, no. That was a long time ago. We were ... it was stupid. She blew it up. She does that, Cat. She makes things mean way more than they're supposed to. It's crazy. She's crazy, but that doesn't take long to figure out. You spend all of three seconds with her and you know all of the lights either aren't on or _are _on at full voltage.

I sigh, looking at my fingers. No. No, that's not right. I don't like thinking of her like that, like she's ... disposable or something. Like Tori said, Cat's a person and she, like, matters. At least, she did. I don't know. It was a long time ago, we were hormonal and stupid, and I messed her up a little bit, but Jesus, it's been two years. You'd think she'd have learned by now. But it's Cat, and she's like that, weird and abnormal and unpredictable, and she does everything you think she wouldn't or shouldn't, but Cat's ... Cat.

I turn off my iPod and toss it on my desk, slumping over to my bed. This is dumb. I haven't dwelt on Cat in so long. It's pointless because it was then and this is now and it's over and done with and I have Beck. Handsome, talented, sweet, nice, hot, beautiful, wonderful Beck. I reach for my phone, dialing his number without looking at the numbers.

He answers on the first ring.

"Hey, how was the play?"

I smile, rolling onto my back. "Great. My dad said it was excellent. Can you believe that?"

I hear the grin in his voice. "You owe a lot to Tori, you know. She bent over backwards for you."

I frown, my good mood simmered as soon as it arose. I don't like being reminded that I needed help doing anything, so I grumble a half hearted, "Yeah."

"Also, Trina. She got manhandled by a crazy Asian woman all for you tonight."

I drop the phone next to my ear on the mattress and raise my hands above my face, examining the nails. "Why do people do nice things for me?"

"Well, for Trina, it was an opportunity to be famous for a few hours -"

"No, I get her. I meant Tori. Why would Tori be nice to me? Why did she do what I told her?"

"...The same reason we all do? Because you're terrifying?"

I snort. "Very funny."

"I don't know. Because she wants to be your friend."

I purse my lips. "But I'm not nice. I'm not friendly."

"Jade, I'm not a mind reader. I don't know why she did it, you should just be grateful."

"Don't tell me what to do." I pick up the phone and sit up, glaring out the window. The street is dark and illuminated orange. I frown - I really don't understand. Tori's ... well, yeah, I knew she was afraid of me. Most people are. I come off kind of angry, I guess. Beck seems to be the only person who can look past that. Beck's not like everyone else. He's not intimidated by me, he's not afraid to tell me to shut up and sit down like most people. I like that about him. At least, I think I do. He gets a little bossy sometimes, a bit snappy, but I try to justify that by my being a bitch quite frequently. Honestly, I should just be glad he puts up with it.

"Fine. Look, I'm doing homework. Can we talk later?"

I frown again. "Can't it wait? I barely got to talk to you at all today."

"I'll see you tomorrow at school, Jade."

Well, maybe there are some things that I really don't like about Beck. He doesn't listen to me. We talk, but he doesn't listen. I can't talk about my parents or my friends or anything, really. All Beck likes to talk about is his future as an actor and how him and I are going to star in the biggest movies, how we're going to be the next Brad and Angelina. He's never stopped to think that maybe that isn't what I want. He just assumes he's making the best decisions while I'm sitting here in the background, like, 'what the fuck?'. But he's Beck and to everyone else he's perfect and I'm just his bitchy girlfriend. Those are our roles in the play.

I roll my eyes. "Fine. Bye."

I hang up before he can reply, dropping my phone on the mattress and rolling on my side. I stare into space for awhile, thinking about Beck and all of the things I like about him. He's handsome, he's nice, he puts up with my general disapproving attitude. But for what? Sometimes it plagues me, like ... what is Beck really getting in return? I'm not nice. More often than not I treat him like crap, and everyone else, actually, and I just -

I frown at myself. Why am I even thinking about this? This is stupid. Beck and I have been together forever and it's going to stay that way.

_"Forever, Jade?"_

It hits me so hard and out of nowhere that I strangle myself trying to inhale. I sit up, clutching my heart like it's trying to pound right out of me. What the hell? What the actual fuck? I haven't remembered anything from ... back then in so long, why is it suddenly strangling me? It's like she's still here in my room somehow, living in the past, a memory, like she's residual and breathing through the walls.

This is crazy.

Cat and I are over. We were over before we began. It was stupid and quick and over. It's done. We're friends and that's it. That's all we're ever going to be because I'm a girl and she's a girl and that's it. That's all. I have Beck.

I try to ignore the ache in my chest. I don't want to acknowledge the fact that it hurts because that means I'm not over it and I am. I'm totally, one hundred percent over it.

My heart says otherwise.

I look at my phone again. The background is a picture of Beck and I. He's smiling. I'm looking ... well, Jade-like, which is overall angry and mad. I'm clutching his arm possessively. This is who I am. I'm Beck's Jade. Not Cat's, not anybody else's.

Beck doesn't even know about ... about back then, before him. He doesn't know that Cat and I had a ... what? A thing? That we we ... No. It was nothing. He doesn't know because it's not important. It didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now. It was, what? Middle school, freshmen year. She just turned it into something it wasn't. But we're both past it, we're both fine. She's dated other guys and I have Beck and we're just friends. Just friends.

I tear off my clothes and slip into pajamas. It's early but I'm so tired, too tired for this, and I crawl beneath the blankets and stare at the dark ceiling. I don't have time to dwell on flashbacks, things that never were and were never meant to be. Besides, it's Cat. She's out of her mind. Was it really what she thought it was, anyway? We just maybe ... kissed a couple of times and she might have spent the night but it was just ... fun. Messing around.

And like she talks to Tori about me, tells her we did 'nice things'. That bitch. Fuck this. I don't need this keeping me up. I reach for my phone and text Beck,_ I love you_. I don't do it often, out of the blue like this, but damnit, I have a boyfriend and I'm not going to let a short, experimental fling mess that up. I was a different Jade then, and now I'm Beck's Jade, and that's who I'm staying as.

It takes ten minutes for him to answer. _Ditto_.

I roll my eyes and toss the phone somewhere in the sheets. It's not the answer I want but he's a boy and I can try to overlook that, but I can't help but think to myself, Cat would have said it back. Hell, she would have called and sang me to sleep.

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**A/N:** _Good evening, chaps! This here be the third chapter of the story, I hope it tickles your fancy._

_...Er. Yeah._

_I know not much is happening now, but now that the POVs are set up, there will be more action and interaction among the three girls. I just really wanted to set the stage here. _

_Also, I'm leaving home for a few days and won't be back until Sunday. I'll have internet, but I don't know how much time I'll have to write, so I wanted to get this up ASAP because the next update might be a bit of a longer wait._

_Anyway, enjoy!_


	4. Chapter 4

_**|Tori|**_

It's like no one else even sees her.

Sikowitz is talking but I'm not listening, my eyes narrowed on Cat across the way. Her face is all torn up, her eyes out the window, fingers to her lips and her mind far off. It's obvious, at least to me, that what happened yesterday is still plaguing her. I can't say that it's not still plaguing me, either. I chew the tip of my pencil. I still don't get why I'm so ... involved all of a sudden. Cat and I have been friends since I started attending Hollywood Arts, but it's always been silly, go-out-for-lunch-sometimes, talk-about-ex-boyfriends, gossip-about-other-girls kind of friendship. It was easy and light hearted, just like I assumed Cat was one hundred percent of the time.

But this is new. This is darker, more ... more deep, and I don't know how to handle it, really. I'm so used to her being bright as the sun and cheery and warm and now she's the moon, the light that normally makes her so bright dimming and flickering. I never knew how much I really adored that about her - her contagious happiness, her smile, her laugh, until it was gone, snuffed out like breath on a flame. I don't want her to burn out.

I really do care about Cat. I mean, I seem to be the only person who has even looked at her twice all morning. How can people not see her? How can they not notice how opposite she is? Even her clothes are dark and washed out, a gray sweatshirt and jeans. No earrings, no necklaces, and most of all, no smile. She's just blank and empty looking and when the bell rings the room explodes with noise and kids shoving toward the door. I weave through the students, watching through the gaps as Cat stands and swings her purse over her shoulder. She looks so much like a robot going through the motions that it hurts me. No bounce in her step, no sunshine. I finally make it to her side, clutching her elbow before she can move any further.

"Cat?"

She meets my eyes with surprise, the soft brown of her irises softening when she meets mine.

"Hey, Tori. What's up?"

I can tell she's trying. She adjusts her purse and struggles to make her face bright and open and pleasant like she usually is, but I can tell it's killing her. My eyes flick over her shoulder briefly and Jade's hovering in the doorway like a ghost, her eyes black from the distance. My mouth drops open awkwardly as Jade's hawk-like eyes pin me to the spot, shifting from me to Cat and my hand on her elbow and then she spins, a wave of brunette hair following after her and then she's gone.

I turn back to Cat. She's chewing her lip, watching me expectantly and I frown, shaking my head to clear the image of Jade glaring at me out of my mind. "Are you okay? You seem ... you seem off. Are you still upset about Jade?"

Cat's chest hitches. I frown. Just the girl's name is sending Cat into a mini panic. I study her face, watch the lines shift and strain to remain calm but I can tell by the trembling of her eyes that she's going to cry. I don't know what else to do so I just hug her, bringing her to my chest and her face buries in the crook of my neck. I still don't understand, but she holds onto me like I'm the only thing keeping her together, the only thing keeping the strings from snapping. Her nails are in my back and she smells like vanilla and she hugs me until the bell rings, her back shaking.

"It's okay, it's okay." I don't know what else to say. I didn't know Cat could feel things like this, could get sad ... it's so unlike her I don't even know how to react. I rub her back and finally she pulls away, her cheeks damp.

"I'm sorry." Her voice catches in her throat, a whimper of an apology and I bring her to me again, my hand on the back of her head.

"Don't worry, it's fine. Do you wanna go to the janitor's closet until you calm down?"

She nods in my neck and I find her hand, fingers slipping and filling the spaces between hers as I lead her out of the classroom and into the now empty hallway. I don't much care about being tardy - Cat's more important. I don't want her to break. I need answers. I need to know what's happening, what happened, what's going to happen, because Cat's someone that just can't be busted. I just ... I suddenly feel so protective. I want to make her better in anyway I can. I didn't notice until now how ... how weak she is, how fragile, how easily broken she can be. It tugs something instinctive in me, almost maternal. Cat is built for smiles, not frowns.

I close the door behind us, shifting a garbage can out of the way. Cat's hand slips from mine, her arms swinging lifelessly at her sides. She stares at the floor. Her hair even looks darker somehow, the red looking too much like blood, the way it hangs in front of her eyes. I stand there in silence for a moment, watching her. She was fine until I brought up Jade hugging me, and suddenly she just ... breaks. Right in front of me. I don't know how to put the pieces back together. I don't know why she's not whole to begin with.

"Tell me what happened, Cat." I reach out, touching her arm again. She looks up at me, the dark circles under her eyes like bruises. I wonder if she got much sleep last night, if she got any at all. I rub her arm in what I hope to be a comforting manner, stepping closer. Her chest hitches again, eyes darting away from me as they squeeze shut. "It's okay. You can talk to me."

"She said not to." Cat's voice is choking, catching in her throat. "She said not to talk about it to anyone."

I frown down at her. Her eyes are still shut, her hand lifting up to cover her mouth. I touch her hair, pulling it out of her eyes. "Talk about what?"

"Us. Then. Back then. Our time. She ... she said I wasn't allowed to talk about it because it didn't matter." Cat's eyes open to a flood of water falling over the brim of her eyes. She sucks in a breath that shatters in her lungs, exhaling so hard I think she might hyperventilate.

I glance around the empty janitor's closet pointedly. "Well, she's not here, so you can tell me."

Cat shakes her head almost violently, her hair whipping around her face. "No, I can't, I can't, Tori. It hurts and I'm supposed to be a good actress. I'm supposed to keep acting, like she said."

"Cat ..." I drift off, not sure how to get through to her. I know how scary Jade can be, and I'm what I would consider normal, but Cat ... well, pardon the comparison, but she's much like a kitten. Skittish and frightened, easily hurt, and I can see her bending to Jade's whim on command. It's just in her nature to try and make everyone happy, and if Jade insisted that Cat keep her mouth shut about whatever it was they used to do, or be, it seems like, then I don't doubt Cat would keep that promise.

Still. If Jade is responsible for reducing Cat to this, for causing her this much pain, then I can't just sit by and let it happen. It's not fair to her and I'm finding out that I care a lot more than I thought I would.

"Why don't you just ... show me, instead? She never said you couldn't show people, right?"

It's a cruel trick, really, a manipulative tool to get what I want to know. Cat's eyes flutter up to me and I can practically see the wheels turning in her brain, the connections electrifying in her pupils. There's almost a smile there, a quirk of her lips as she nods vigorously.

"No, no, she never said I couldn't do that. I could show you. I could show you and then you'd know." Cat's face grows serious again, her hand reaching down to circle around my wrist. I watch her face as she raises it, pressing it under her collarbone. "It started here. Right here. Warm and soft. Beatbeatbeat, feel it, Tori? It said her name. Jade, Jade, Jade. And hers said mine. I remember. We used to -" She halts, biting her lip. "Showing, showing. Okay."

She steps closer to me. The air suddenly feels thick and heavy, and her eyes capture mine and it's like being hypnotized, in a trance, because I can't move. I feel the closet door on my back, keeping me from moving any further and Cat's flush against me now, her sweatshirt puddling between her chest and mine. I'm scared. I don't know why, but the fear tingling up my spine is enough to paralyze me, my lips falling open as Cat's face grows closer and closer.

"I'm showing you," she says, and her hands drift to rest against my hips. It's my turn to hitch a breath this time, swallowing hard, my throat forgetting it's function and oh my god this isn't happening, this isn't happening, I'm not here I don't know what's going on oh my god oh my god -

She's kissing me.

My eyes fall closed. I don't know if it's instinct or what, but as soon as her warm, soft lips mold against mine they fall like heavy blinds. My hands curl into fists at my sides. All thought is wiped out, replaced with just the smell of her, the way her lips feel on mine, my skull swirling with vanilla. I don't know what comes over me, electricity sparking in my stomach, my heart shuddering under my ribs, but I'm ... I'm kissing her back. It surprises her, because her body gets tense for a moment as my hands touch her neck to pull her closer. I don't ... I don't know why, I can't think, I'm just acting, just pulling her closer and kissing her back. She melts soon enough, her tongue teasing my lips and with a swallowed gasp I let her inside. She tastes like bubblegum. Like laughter and kindness, it invades me, swims down into my lungs as my fingers thread through her hair. Her hips meet mine, almost grinding me into the closet door. It's almost paranormal the way I feel what she's showing me; I can interpret her lips, her tongue - there is pain, there is regret, there is sorrow but there is something much more bold behind all of that. Love.

Cat loved her. Loves.

And that's when Jade slams in front of my eyes.

I pull back with a loud gasp, Cat falling into me as I try to make some space between us. Her eyes are bleary and my knees are weak, my hands spreading on the door behind me to keep myself up. I pant heavily, meeting Cat's eyes. She looks lost, confused, eyes shifting between me and her hands. She takes a step back, her head shaking.

"I'm ... I was just ... showing you ..."

I swallow, the sound seeming to echo in the room. "Cat -" It's a whisper, so I cough and try again. "Cat, it's, it's fine, it's okay. I ... I get it." I reach up, my hands shaking as I smooth back my hair. "You and Jade ... you were ... like that."

Cat nods, sucking her lower lip between her teeth. She holds it there and I find with a startle of my tongue that I'm doing the same thing - tasting her. I swallow again, trying to ignore the fact that I'm savoring her in my mouth.

"She was in my ribcage. Like a bird. It still talks about her." She frowns and rubs her collarbone. "But she said 'my dad, Cat, you know I can't' and 'just friends, Cat' and 'now I have Beck, Cat' and I hate pretending, Tori."

It's painful just watching her, seeing her face go from sad to angry to regret all at once. Those kinds of emotions don't belong on her face. Nothing but a smile belongs there. It's killing me, and my heart is still pounding unmercifully, so hard it hurts. I reach out and touch her arm, her eyes drifting up to mine.

"I could help you, right? Get over her, I mean. That's what friends are for, right?"

There's a spark in her eyes, a turn of her lips. "You'd do that for me?"

I smile, nodding, warmth spreading through my chest. "Of course."

Her arms swing around my shoulders. I hold her close, feel her smile against my neck.

"Thank you, Tori."

I nod, my hand on the back of her head. I can still feel her on my lips.

And it hits me then, and it's cliche and overdone, but really - what have I gotten myself into?

* * *

**A/N:** _I'm back! Thanks so much for the feedback while I was away, I really do appreciate it._

_Now, here's some momentum, hm? For your fancies. And your panties. And reviews._

_But mostly your panties._


	5. Chapter 5

_**|Cat|**_

"Valentine? You can leave now. The bell rang."

"Hm?" I turn, dragging my eyes away from the window with a lot of effort on my part. My history teacher is frowning at me from the doorway of the room, one hand rubbing the peak of his bald head while the other rests on his hip. I struggle to not to look out the window again. The sky is just so pretty at this time in the afternoon; the sun looks like it's bleeding all over the horizon. My eyes skitter away from the teacher again to play over the bright outdoors. It's so bright, so clear and warm, and I just want to get lost in all of it. I want to go to the beach and turn into the sand and kiss the ocean and -

"Cat. Go home."

"Oh." I spin away from the window, releasing a breath. I lick my lips as I swing my purse over my shoulder, only to wish I hadn't; I can still taste Tori there. My cheeks are smoldering as I duck out of the classroom, mumbling a half-hearted goodbye to my teacher as I leave him. It's like she's stained to my lips and I'm afraid to talk much because then she'll flood my mouth or something and I don't like the idea of drowning. She tastes like lipgloss, something like watermelon, and it's so different from the way ... the way Jade tasted. Jade always tasted like coffee. I'm trying to decide which is better, frowning as I pull my backpack from my locker.

But I wasn't kissing Tori to kiss her. I was just ... just showing, because Jade said I couldn't tell. Is that cheating? I shut the metal door and tug my lower lip between my teeth, chewing nervously, and again my tongue rolls against it. Fruit. It swims down my throat and I swallow hard. I just ... I wanted Tori to know. I trust her. She said she's going to help me and I believe her. Tori's nice. Tori has smiles on her face almost all the time. I can believe in her, right?

I slip my arms into the shoulder straps of my backpack and watch my feet as I move toward the front door. I just want to go home. Or maybe I'll go to Tori's house. There was a few moments there, back in the janitor's closet when I kissed her, that ... it was weird, it was like ... my thoughts about Jade, Jade just ... went quiet. It was brief but it was there and I could have sworn Tori was kissing me back. I frown, rubbing the skin above my collarbone. Maybe I just wish she was. I don't know. But Jade went away for awhile, and Beck, and everything else, and my little show turned into this spark and it boiled under my skin and now I feel like I'm full of bubbles.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I'll go to Tori's. She'll help me. She'll get this nonsense out of my head. I nod to myself, mumbling confirmation as I reach the door and push on it, only for it to jerk back at me. I lift my head, about to make a comment to the door about how I need to get out, only to freeze. My feet stumble backward.

"Jade?"

She's peering at me through the glass on the other side of the door, her eyes dark and heavy and black like two holes drilled into her face. She pulls the door open, slipping through the crack. The studs on her belt are glittering and the blue in her hair flutters down her shoulders and I'm staring at her neck if just to ignore her lips. I can't think about them, not after Tori, I just ... Tori was the Novocaine and Jade's the dentist with the weapons.

Down down down.

"What are you doing here?" I try to perk up, giving her a smile that feels too big for my face. I jog my feet up and down, casting my eyes over her shoulder. The parking lot is nearly empty and the hallways are echoing my voice. I swallow when she doesn't answer right away, slipping past her mouth to meet her eyes. The dark orbs are paralyzing and I forget where I am for a minute and it's like chains, the way she looks at me, wrapping around my feet and pulling me Down.

I cling to Tori between my ears, in the janitor's closet, licking my lips furiously. Up. Go Up.

"Tori told me you were saying some things." Jade's hands curl around her hips, fingernails like talons and the girl is a hawk without wings, I swear. Even now, looking like she's about to punch me, I can't help but admire how ... how beautiful she is. I lose, my eyes studying her lips and I lick mine again, and again, and all I taste is Tori and suddenly I want to taste Jade instead. I want that coffee buried in my cheeks again, fanning across my cheek, swimming in my ear.

"What?" It comes out sounding much more stupid than I planned, trying to remember what we're even talking about. I watch her lips shit into a tight frown as she takes a step forward and suddenly she's ducking and swooping her eyes into mine. They're a pretty green, once you get past all the makeup.

"Remember when I told you not to talk about _it_?" She puts enough emphasis on the last word to slice right through my ears. I'm lost in her eyes, my mouth falling open and closing again and it's like being scolded by a dragon, the way she looks at me, like she wants to set me on fire. I take a step back only for her to move forward again, leering over me and I'm the cat and she's the lion, gracefully dangerous.

"I didn't." I shake my head, my hands raising like I'm surrendering. The drain is swirling me down, the chains of her eyes locking around my feet. "I swear, I didn't."

"Then why did Tori call me last night? Why did Tori say that you were making remarks about the 'nice things' we used to do?" She takes another step forward, her lips pressed in a hard line and I shake my head again, my heart trembling under my tongue.

"I - I, I just, I didn't -"

Jade's hand reaches out so fast I don't even see it, fingers curling tightly around my chin. I gasp, her eyes locking into mine and my brain just flickers out, short circuits from her being so close and so cold and so there and I sink, my knees about to give out on me and down down down I claw desperately at anything but her eyes on mine down down but she's all I can see she's right there and her eyes shift between mine and then they focus on my mouth and I lick them and something registers in my brain that it isn't the taste of Jade it isn't coffee down down down down down -

Her eyes snap back to mine and she's trying to remain so stoic but when she breathes in it catches somewhere on the way down to her lungs. "Don't talk about it again. It was stupid and meaningless."

Stupid and meaningless. Stupid and meaningless.

It tattoos itself across my brain.

I nod. I nod because it's all I can do.

Her fingers fall from my chin and I wobble slightly, gripping the straps of my backpack. Jade hesitates, her foot sliding backward and her eyes are softening like wax on a candle, melting as she watches me. I don't know what my face is showing but my heart is Down and I feel like falling and falling and going away. Her arm pauses in the air between us, and then she's sliding back to me, her fingers whispering against the very edges of my hair. I can't help but relax as she gets closer, resisting the urge to snuggle into her chest like a forgiving pet. I just want her to hold me and it hurts under my sternum because she won't.

"I didn't mean to scare you," she says, and I nod again, because I believe her. I believe her because I always have.

The green of her eyes are kinder now, gentle, like I could nest in them, and I remember the way she was before all of this, before words like _stupid _and _meaningless_ left her mouth. When it was words like _forever _and _always _instead. I remember there was a Jade I knew before this one came along. This mask. This shield. This isn't the Jade that was wound up in my sheets kissing my knuckles in the dark.

"I just ... Cat, you've gotta move on, all right? Like I did. It was a long time ago and ... Beck. I have Beck."

Her eyes leave mine and I watch her eyelashes. They're almost long enough to have their own shadows. I follow the lines of her jaw, over her lips, and again mine meet my tongue to taste like Tori, watermelon, fruit, Up, and Tori, and I should want that more than Down, more than coffee, more than Jade, but I don't. I need my fix. I want her.

"I had you first."

I don't know why I say it, why it comes out, but it hangs between us and she snaps her eyes up, her mouth growing stern. I frown and take a step back but she's right there in my face again, her anger pushing me backward.

"And now I have Beck, so back off." It grinds over her teeth and into my ears, sawing away at the drums that make me hear and I'm going Down again and I want to reach out and bring her with me but Beck is her wings now and she soars away from me.

"I mean it, Cat. Don't make this any harder than it needs to be. It's over. Done." Her hand slices in front of me like she's cutting something off, making it stop, pushing it Down.

"Stupid and meaningless," I repeat back at her, my fingers shaking as I hold the straps of my backpack.

She falters again. I don't normally see Jade hesitate this much, or question, or think twice. She used to, though, back when it was stupid and meaningless. She was meaningfully meaningless when she would backtrack for me. It's like I set off an older part of her, something that wants to remember.

I want to reach in and pull her out. Up.

"Yeah," she says, but her eyes are sad, and that's a sign of hope for me.

She spins out of the door and I watch her back, watch her fall into her car and drive away. I push the doors open and slip into the sun.

I wonder if she looks back.

* * *

**A/N: **_I have a three day weekend, and you know what I'm going to do for the majority of it?_

_This. This and sleep. And not homework, because homework is lame._

_You should definitely review. It would make me so very happy. Like ... like a kitten killing a bird. Minus the bird, and the blood.  
_


	6. Chapter 6

_**|Jade|**_

I feel like I'm about to snap. Not just snap - explode. Implode. Burn.

I want to set both of them on fire.

They've been inseparable this whole week. They're practically on top of each other all day - she's touching her hand, playing with her hair, draping her legs over her lap - it's making me sick just by watching and I don't even know why.

I pluck angrily at my salad, grumbling down into the food. This is stupid. Why do I even care? Let them be 'besties' or whatever the fuck they're doing. I don't fucking care. I don't. I have Beck. I don't need friends, I don't need old crushes following me around, I don't need Tori. I don't need Cat. In fact, they are the last thing I need. No, they aren't even on my list of needs. They can both just fuck off.

"You okay?"

Beck's hand is on my back and I turn to glare at him. His eyes are the softest brown and I can tell he's genuinely worried, dark brows meeting over his nose. I turn my eyes sharply across the courtyard. Cat is leaning on Tori's shoulder and they're both laughing at something Andre is saying, the sun playing on their table and lighting it up like a goddamn halo. I huff loudly, dropping my fork to wind my hands into Beck's black hair, tugging him closer and kissing him hard on the mouth. He smells like hotdog but I don't even give a shit, I just keep the kiss going until he pulls back to breathe.

"Jeez, Jade." He shakes his head, eying my curiously as he turns back to his food. We're sitting alone, to my insisting, because I just couldn't take sitting that close to ... to them.

"What? I can't show you some affection? What do you want me to do, ignore you? I can do that." I fold my arms and turn away from him, only to feel his chin on my shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

I twist my mouth and once again my eyes are sliding toward Vega and Cat on the other side of the courtyard. I can't ... I can't get over how happy Cat looks. Her eyes are bright, her smile is wide, her hands pulling Tori's hair away from her neck and she's whispering something in her ear. I grit my teeth. Cat was a mess earlier this week, and I thought I had scared her away from Tori for good ... not that I feel particularly good about how I went about it. My shoulders sag slightly, the fight melting out of me. I didn't mean to scare her, and now the image of her frightened, puppy-eyes is burned into my brain. I come off mean, I can't help it, and I thought she was going to cry as she stood there, repeating my words back to me - _stupid and meaningless._

Even thinking about it now, it makes my stomach turn.

"Hello? Jade?"

I turn to look at him, sighing hard as I search for his hand. I don't find any comfort there, not in his hold, not in his eyes, and I glare hard at the table. This is Cat's fault. She stirred up all of these old feelings ... no! No, I don't have feelings. Not for her, not for anyone. Just Beck. The bell sounds and I lean over again, kissing Beck. I can sense more than see him rolling his eyes at me and then I'm standing up, swinging my purse over my shoulder and moving wordlessly away from him. I try not to look at either of them, but my eyes betray me, sliding over to study Cat and Tori - Cat's staring at me. I hesitate only briefly, holding her eyes without a lick of fear in them. Let her stare. Let her know she can't have this, and maybe she'll back the fuck off.

The happiness I had seen in her earlier ... I literally watch it die away. Her smile falls, her hands meeting nervously over her mouth. Tori is frowning down at her, following her gaze to me and I shift my gaze to her, too, holding it defiantly. She's the one that messed everything up. Everything was fine, going smoothly, and then she ... then she fucked Cat up and made her think about things that were never important. Fuck. Tori looks back at me with surprising strength, touching Cat's arm and saying something to her. I can't hear from where I am so I just walk by angrily, Beck close at my heels.

The rest of my classes blur by me, my mind somewhere else. I am not in the mood for this, any of this. I just want to hole up somewhere and break really expensive pottery or something. I fume through school and when the final bell rings I tell Beck that I'm following him home. He keeps looking at me like I'm a time-bomb and, you know, maybe I am. I certainly want to blow up, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Beck even manages not to crack any jokes, which, for his own sake, is good. I would gouge out his eyes if he tried.

I grip the steering wheel on the way to his RV until my knuckles bleach white. Why do I even care? Why does it piss me off so much that Cat and Tori are so buddy-buddy all of the sudden? A part of me is terrified that Tori ... that Cat told Tori something she didn't mean. Why else would they be so close? My teeth grind. I told her not to tell anybody, that it didn't mean anything, that it was never supposed to happen ... and it wasn't. None of that stupid ... stupid hormonal shit we did was worth anything. It was just two teenage girls messing around. It happens all the time. Cat just, she doesn't know when to quit. She doesn't know how to keep her feelings in tow, she can't separate reality from fantasy.

I swing into Beck's driveway right behind him, hurling myself out of the car. He pauses by the door to his trailer, unlocking it as his eyes shoot tentative glances toward me.

"Seriously, what's up with you?"

"I'm horny."

The blunt words catch him off guard, but he lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. He grins happily at me, yanking the door open and all but running inside. I slip into the RV - it's a familiar place for me, almost a second home because I spend so much time here. He closes the door behind me, locking it eagerly. I sigh, feeling his hands on my hips, his mouth on the crook of my neck. I lean back against him and close my eyes - this has got to be the best way to shut my thoughts up, I think, rocking my hips back against him. His breath is hot as it runs along my jugular and then I'm spinning around, throwing him against the door of the RV and kissing him.

Beck is a great kisser. I know, because I taught him. He uses just the right amount of pressure, just the right amount of tongue, and his hands play expertly up my shirt, fingers walking up my ribs. I moan as his tongue meets mine, shifting my shoulders to tear off my jacket. Beck muffles a laugh as the kiss breaks, urging me backward.

"Feisty," he whispers against my lips, his eyes hooded and something tries to catch in me, tries to spark like an engine attempting to turn but it dies, it struggles and burns out.

Fueled by my frustration, I tear off his shirt and he rips off mine, the back of my legs meeting the bed as I fall down, my back meeting the bedsheets. He crawls over me, my legs parting to let him in and his lips are on my neck, careful not to bite because he knows how trashy I think bruises are. His hands run over my bra and I arch up, my eyes closing as he kisses his way between my breasts. I try to focus - on him, on this, on my fucking boyfriend, for Christ's sake, but all I see behind the blinds of my eyelids is Cat staring at me as I crossed the courtyard, the light dying in her eyes. I turn my head, Beck's mouth on my bellybutton now, his fingers plucking the button of my jeans. I lift my hips, letting the garment fall down my legs and tossed on the floor. I crack my eyes open to see Beck, hungry and grinning, his teeth gliding over the elastic of my panties.

My eyes close again. I don't know if it's just instinct to do it or if it's because I ... no. No, I'm not trying to imagine someone else. But as soon as Beck's hand glides over my panties, Cat explodes in front of my eyes. I moan, my legs twitching as I try to grind down into his hand. I can hear him breathing and I wonder if he knows just who I'm thinking about ... I shake my head again in a desperate attempt to get her out, to shake her off. Fuck. Fuck this.

My panties are gone and he's between my legs, breathing against me and I tremble, but not because of him - because his breath is Cat's behind my eyes, because my brain is spiraling down into the past. I remember the first time I kissed Cat, awkward and nervous on her bed and we had stolen some wine coolers form her parents and we thought we were so badass. We didn't have sex then, but her cheeks were so red and I laughed and we kissed some more, and watched movies, and it was innocent and sweet and why the fuck am I thinking about this right now?

I moan again as his tongue flicks against me, my hands sliding over my chest and gripping my breasts. This is unfuckingbelivable. Here I am with my boyfriend willingly going down on me and I'm fantasizing about a crazy fucking redhead? I pull my eyes open and watch his black hair bob between my legs, his tongue a fucking genie, but as soon as I realize its him it's like the excitement begins to die.

I am too horny for this.

I let my head fall back again, eyes screwing shut as Cat floods me again. The way she smelled, the way she touched me, the way she looked all flushed and trembling beneath me, the way she said _Jade _like it was her favorite.

Beck is Cat and when I come it feels like falling from a hundred feet up.

Beck crawls over me again, grinning this cocky-ass smile, but my eyes stray away from him, panting hard. Something heavy coils in my chest. Guilt? It grips my heart and pulses with every pump and Beck moves away, saying something about grabbing a condom. I honestly don't notice, and the rest of the sex is uneventful for me. Beck's happy as fuck, tossing my bra off and riding into waves of ecstasy that are written all over his face. I just watch him, making the appropriate noises, but my mind is somewhere else entirely.

He finishes - quite loudly - and I dress, telling him I have homework to do. He whines pathetically, doesn't even notice the faraway look in my eyes. I just ... I need to get out of here. I need to get away from him for a little while and put my priorities in order. Right now. He kisses me before I leave and I try to return the gesture as much as I can, but the fact that he doesn't smell like vanilla turns me off.

I drive home in angry silence. Not even music can soothe this.

* * *

**A/N:** _Guys. It's my birthday in two days. A review would just, it would ... I will love all of you forever. And update soon, because this story has become like oxygen. Or food. Or masturbation. All three of which I do. A lot._

_...And now you've learned way too much about me. Review, mis amigos!_


	7. Chapter 7

_**|Tori|**_

This isn't what it was supposed to be.

I was supposed to nurture her back to health or something, like I did when I was eight and rescued a fallen baby bird out in the front lawn. I fed it worms and crushed bugs for three weeks before I released it in the woods. I felt like a mother then, and that's all I was supposed to be feeling now. Motherly, maternal, guiding Cat back to her strength so she could handle the world on her own.

But it's ... it's not like that. At all. Not even a little.

It's like she's a part of me or something.

I look down at her, her head on my shoulder, an arm draped over my waist. She's sleeping, and she's so ... she's so peaceful, I almost want to take a picture. Only that would be way creepy and I'm too afraid to move, to jostle her awake. I never see her like this. I never see her without something running rampant around her face, tugging at her lips and eyebrows and nose. Sleep smooths everything out. I wouldn't say she's blank or empty, but she's just glowing in a way her dreams must make her burn. It's weird. It's weird that I'm even noticing, actually.

My eyes slide down her rising and falling chest, trailing cautiously over her shorts. Her legs are white and creamy and one is swung over the other. Our knees are touching. The light blue cotton of her tank top is riding up over her stomach. I can see her bellybutton. My cheeks feel hot - my entire body feels hot, actually, even though the air conditioner is on and it's nighttime. My TV is flickering beyond us, the sound down so low the voices are only a distant hum. As soon as I noticed Cat was asleep, I turned down the volume and then I just got ... distracted. By her. By a girl.

By Cat.

I swallow hard. I can feel my heart pulsing in every part of my body. It's actually kind of freaking me out. There's no way anything about this - about Cat and I - is normal. I'm not supposed to get all flushed and blushy and weird and butterflies with a girl. I like boys. I've always liked boys. They're hot and smell nice and have great voices and eyes and ... come to think about it, Cat has such a pretty voice, and her eyes are so soft and dream-like all the time, and she has some great legs -

Oh. Jesus.

The arm she has draped over my waist is so dangerously close to the edge of my pajama pants.

I'm very aware of that all of the sudden.

Cat and I have been together nearly every moment all this week. She's so much happier when she's around me, she just lights up and burns so brightly and I've come to realize that I like having her around. I feel lighter and less tense. Her laugh is contagious, her smile makes my heart sing, having her close to me does really weird things to my body and I just ... I don't understand. I want to, but I can't. I just, I want to fold my wings around her and keep her close. I like hearing her whisper things to me, like how my eyes remind her of Hershey's Kisses, or I could have been a Latina princess back in the day, or how my hands make her think of paintbrushes.

I was hoping this meant best friendship, but you just don't say those kinds of things. Not the way she says them, with her eyes heavy and flickering between my eyes and my mouth and, God, I'm not supposed to like any of it.

I try to remind myself that this is Cat. She's weird, she does things no one else does, but that only makes me like it more. It only makes me want to be around her more often than I already am. I want to see what's under the layers she's created all of these years. I want to know everything. I want to see what she's hidden. It's a weird feeling for me. I've had friends, close friends, best friends, even, but none of them ... none of them were like this and it almost scares me, but intrigues me all the same.

She stirs then, her cheek brushing along the bare slope of my shoulder. She yawns, her arm lifting off of my waist to crook over her eyes. The cutest, softest sound escapes her throat as she pulls back, brown eyes fluttering open. They land blearily on the TV before shifting to me, a soft, sleepy smile pulling at the candy-pink of her lips.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep." She doesn't move away from me. I smile nervously as her arm lands right on my waist again. Oh. Warmth seems to seep from her touch, filtering into my skin and under my pants and -

"It's okay. You're cute when you sleep." My mouth clicks shut. What? Why did I just say that? My cheeks burn furiously as I look away from her, jerking my eyes to the TV but it's so quiet that I don't even know what's going on, what we're watching. Cat's grown stiff beside me, her arm tensing as it moves away again and her cheek is off my shoulder. I frown, glancing at her warily, her lip wedged between her teeth and her eyes on her fingers. She's twisting the purple fabric of my comforter, eyes far away. "Hey, you all right?"

Cat looks at me and she looks so innocent and broken that it quite literally makes me want to cry. This was her face that day she cried in the classroom, when she ... when she kissed me in the bathroom. I swallow hard - the memory of that is still thick in my brain. It assaults me when I'm trying to sleep, or eat, or do homework, or when I'm trying to have a platonic sleepover with Cat. You know. Making my life more difficult. And the weird thing is - the bad thing, it should be - is that ... I like thinking about it. I like the way my body feels when I remember the way her lips brushed mine, the way she tasted, sugary and sweet and ... This isn't helping anything.

"Jade used to say that to me." She blinks her eyes away, toward my bedroom window. It's black outside, the TV flashing off the glass. I touch her shoulder, brush her hair away. She leans into me, her cheek against my collarbone, and I stroke her back. We haven't talked about Jade much at all, really, because I know it upsets her. I don't want her to feel that way. Cat's just one of those girls who should always be painfully happy. "She thought I was cute," she continues, her fingers brushing along the cotton of my tank top. "And it made my heart feel like a billion balloons."

"I'm sorry she hurt you." Cat doesn't need to tell me all the details for me to figure out that they were romantic - or, at least, Cat thought they were romantic. Knowing Jade, she was probably messing around with Cat just because she knew she could and it was easy. I don't understand Jade or whatever sick glee she got out of tugging Cat around, but I do know how simple it could be. "You didn't deserve it."

"But what if I did?" She pulls back then, her eyes wide and shimmering in the light of the TV. "Because everything was fine, she said forever, and she said I was cute, and she used to hold me in my sleep and everything was good, Tori, it was so good and then she just, she just one day said, I can't, and what if it was because of me? What if I did something? I love - she - we -"

"Cat." I silence her, my finger pressing against her trembling lips. Her eyes squeeze closed and tears spill out of them, rushing down her cheeks like they can't stand her sadness, either. I cup my hands around her face, using my thumbs to brush the falling drops away. "You didn't do anything, all right? Jade's just, she's Jade, okay? People change."

"She said _forever_, Tori." Her eyes open again and lock with mine and it's like the gears of the cosmos have jammed and everything halts. It's just her face far too close to mine and her eyes begging answers that I can't give. Forever meant a lot to her, forever was everything, and I can practically see every moment she wanted to have with Jade by her side. She wanted that eternity. The agony in her eyes is too deep for someone like her, too tangible, and I swallow hard and shake my head. It isn't even a desire at this point to comfort her - I _need _to. I _have _to. Because I can't leave her like this.

I don't know who kisses who. It's like we met halfway, because she leaned forward and so did I and we're kissing. I want to take the pain out of her eyes and replace it with something good, something she can hold on to. She trembles beneath me as I crawl over her, straddling her waist, my fingers tangling into her hair and kissing her harder, deeper. Her tongue teases my lips and startles a gasp into her mouth, her sweet tongue dancing around my own. Her hands are on my hips, cold fingertips teasing the edges of my tank top, pushing it up so her palms can roam my lower back. My spine shudders, breaking the kiss to take in one useless breath before I kiss her again, and again, and again.

My heart is everywhere but my chest - I can feel it pounding in my hands, my tongue, my ears. Her hips push up into mine and something inside of me throbs with yearning. The kiss breaks again for a noise I've never made before to come out - a moan, a shock of pleasure. She blinks up at me and I peer down at her, our chests heaving with labored breaths that take too much effort to take in. I don't care. I just want to keep kissing her. She meets my lips this time and she's pushing me over, rolling onto my chest with her legs on either side. A fire is kindling in me somewhere, scorching every nerve as her lips leave mine to trail down my jawbone, planting a kiss in the cave below my ear. Her name falls off my lips with no volume behind it, her mouth pressing the lightest of kisses on my neck. Her tongue sweeps over my pounding jugular, the blood slamming up against her mouth. Strands of red hair fall over my face and she smells like vanilla and shampoo and _her_, and I breathe it in like it's more worthy to my lungs than oxygen.

She's sliding down my torso, her hands are coasting over my stomach and this fear strangles me. I don't want to be what Jade was to her. I don't want to be the same to her as Jade was. I want to actually mean something, I want to put a word to the fluttering of my heart when I'm with her and that smile the could mean forever. I prop myself up on my elbows, whispering her name again as she looks up, confusion flickering over her brow. I pant, swallowing hard as I pull myself into a sitting position. Her face falls, a blush crawling over her cheeks as I reach out to touch them.

"No, Cat, it's not - this is- too fast." Apparently I can't form a rational sentence at the moment, which isn't too surprising, honestly. "I don't want to be ... I don't want this to be what it was when you were with Jade, okay? I want ..." I look away for a moment. What do I want? My brain is so dizzy it's like the room is spinning, but Cat never moves. I want her. I want this. I want ... I want to be what Jade couldn't. "I want to take it slow. No pressure. Just ... Just us, okay?"

Cat's eyes flick between mine like she's searching for some kind of deception, like she's waiting for me to shove her out of the bed and into the street. And then she smiles and it's like the sun is peeking through the clouds, the way she lights up, because she nods and leans forward and kisses me light and breezy on the lips.

"Okay. Us. Slow." Her arms snake around my torso and pull me close and, my God, she nuzzles me. Like a kitten. "I like that."

I smile despite myself, my heart slowly relocating back to its proper place in my ribcage, and I kiss her forehead.

She giggles and it sounds like bells.

* * *

**A/N:**_ It's so soft and cuddly, it's like a teddy bear. The fluff. My goodness._

_Just as a warning, the next chapter ... it won't be so ... kind. Unfortunately. _

_But you should review! Because I turned eighteen yesterday and I'm, like, an adult or something. I have authority. You have to listen to me or I'll ground you. Or something. Yeah._


	8. Chapter 8

_**|Cat|**_

I'm awake, but I refuse to open my eyes.

It's so nice here.

Her arms are around my waist, tucked close. Her chest is on my back and our breathing is moving together like synchronized dancing and we're _dancing_, dancing, dancing. Up, up, up. Her breath breezes over my neck and I smile, my hands on her wrists, pulling her close. She shifts, mumbling incoherently against my skin before she's gone again, lost in sleep, in these sheets, lost in the Up.

I take a picture behind my eyes, of the dark. I take a snapshot of the feelings, of the Up, so I can hold on to this for as long as I can. I memorize the bumps of her knuckles as they slip between mine and the way her skin feels like silk and the soft sigh of her exhales as they rustle over my ear and through my hair. She's so close, and we're so Up, and everything about this is so perfect that if I had a choice, I'd never let time go forward again, because things always go wrong.

I rub her arm. But not Tori. Not this.

All this week, I've felt so Up it's like flying without wings. I've been with Tori, I've listened to the strange tunings of my heart and deciphered the words that it chipped into my ribs. _ToriToriTori_, it said, and for once it wasn't saying _JadeJadeJade_, and for once I wanted it to keep beating, to keep talking that way, to say a name. My ribcage rises and falls with her and my blood feels like her and every moment I spend with her arm brushing mine is replacing something dark I had with Jade. Even when Jade would glare across the courtyard at us, her mouth screwed, her eyes on fire, I just looked to Tori and it was like Jade was a headache and Tori was aspirin. Jade's the pain and Tori is the healing. The rehab. The new life.

I smile to myself, pulling my lip between my teeth and trying to silence the bubbles of happiness building in the back of my throat. I can't help but squeal as silently as I can, my eyes opening just a crack to peer over the edge of her bed, out of the window. The sun has set the Hollywood horizon on fire, pink and orange soaking in the sky like spilled ink. I want to paint things with it. I want to paint Tori's hands, Tori's eyes, her lips ... I blink slowly, touching my lips with a finger. Tori kissed me like she meant it, like she wanted to, and it was like a bomb landed in my chest and exploded confetti everywhere - not a bomb, no, a pinata, and now everything tastes sweet.

The abrupt burst of sound coming from my sleepover bag jolts not only me, but Tori too, into consciousness. She squirms and I laugh, turning around to watch her soft, melted-chocolate eyes blink groggily at me. Her fingers rub into them as I crawl across the bed, my body already pumped full of enough energy and adrenaline to last me a marathon. I pull the Princess themed bag open and search for my phone, the loud music growing in volume once it's released from the confines of my bag. I look over my shoulder as I press the phone to my ear and Tori is leaning on her elbow, smiling shyly over to me.

"Hello?"

"Cat. I need to talk to you."

Every good feeling, the ink in the sky, the snapshot behind my eyelids - it all evaporates as quickly as I summoned it up. My face falls as I turn away from Tori, holding the phone with both hands. I let out one breath and then pull it back in, my lungs trying hard to keep me oxygen starved. They don't want to talk to her. I don't want to talk to her. I keep my eyes on my bare feet and something comes out of my mouth, but I'm not sure what it is, because then Jade is saying,

"I need to talk to you right now."

"I'm with Tori." It comes out like a shield, like I'm trying to defend myself. I glance back and Tori is stretching, unaware, giving me the 'one-second' finger as she disappears out of the room and pads across the hall, into the bathroom. The door shuts with a soft click behind her and then I shift back to the phone, only coming in then to hear that Jade is already talking.

"- really care if you're with Tori or the fucking president, I. Need. To Talk."

"A-about ... what?"

"Things. Can you come to my house? My parents are gone."

I remember that. She used to say that to me a lot. _My parents are gone_. It was like a secret code for us. She'd text it to me before she froze over, when she still laughed and had soft hands. _My parents are gone_. That used to mean something, it meant _Please come over I miss you let's kiss under the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on my ceiling_. It meant words like _forever_ and words like _always _and words like _beautiful _and I wonder if she catches it, if she remembers, and then she's saying,

"We're just talking, Cat. I just want to talk."

I hold my phone to my ear with my shoulder and look down at my hands. I study the lines in them and I wish I was a palm reader, I wish I could find the future spelled out in the cross-stitches of my skin. But I can't. I just see them threading through Tori's hair, and touching Jade's hips, and brushing over Tori's cheek, and crawling up Jade's skirt. I remember the first time I touched her, I mean really touched her, fumbling and nervous and probably embarrassing, and she was wet and whimpering on her pillows and I was panting and inexperienced but she tensed like a bowstring and then snapped out my name.

My hands are shaking.

I'm falling Down.

"Okay." It comes out like a surrender. I hang up. I drop it back into the bag. Just talking. She just wants to talk, that's all. I turn to see Tori walking back in, flashing a smile at me as she throws her hair up into a ponytail. I curl my lips at her, rocking back on my heels before I launch into a standing position. "That was my mom." I indicate to the bag. I don't know why I lie. I didn't even think about lying, it just fell over my lips without much though behind it. I bounce on my toes. "She wants me to come home so I can watch my brother. They're going out."

Tori frowns, reaching out for me. I hesitate just briefly before I put my hands into hers. I don't want to lie to Tori, I don't want to look at her while I do it, so I lean down and kiss her so I don't have to. She melts beneath me and she smells like truth and I want nothing more than to sink back into this bed with her and sleep again. I try to remember the picture I took earlier in my head but everything I felt, my body has already forgotten.

I pull away first, smiling down at her. My heart thuds painfully as I release her hands. "Maybe I'll come back later, when my parents come home. We can see a movie!" I clap my hands together before skipping back to my sleepover bag, swinging it over my shoulder. Tori laughs, says something, but I'm not really listening. My body is here, but my mind is already hanging outside of Jade's house.

_My parents are gone._

"Aren't you going to change?" Tori is prodding my arm at the door. I jog my feet anxiously as she laughs. "You're not even wearing a bra."

"Oh, it's fine, Mom said she really wanted me home and she'll be all frowns and fire if I take too long." My smile is too manic, too rushed, I can feel it, and I know Tori sees it, because she pauses and gauges me slowly, a slender dark eyebrow perking over the bronze plane of her forehead.

"You okay?" She touches my elbow. I reach backward, my arm twisting uncomfortably as I find the door handle and push it back. I step onto the porch, feel the sun on the back of my neck, and Tori starts to glow. She's all soft brown and glittering eyes and I push myself up on my tip-toes, kissing her. She smells like the morning, like her bedsheets, and I feel like the icy sting of betrayal.

I don't want to go. I don't want to talk to Jade. I want to stay right here, right now, with her, in this Up, forever in the rising sun. But I don't. I pull back and reassure her with a gentle whisper against her lips and then I'm giggling, skipping off to my car. I even manage to stay that way, happy and calm, all the while I weave silently through the streets. No radio. Just me grinning out the windshield with Tori and her smells and her taste still wrapped around me like a blanket.

_My parents are gone._

Something is telling me to go back, to turn around and speed back to Tori's house and tell her I lied, that Jade wants me to come over, that I don't want to go there because there are secret messages in her words that used to mean something but don't anymore, at least, I don't think they do, but I keep driving, I keep my foot on the gas and just drive, moving through the too-familiar streets that lead to her house the color of sand and then my body is finally lining back up with my mind, in the black slope of her driveway, staring up at the empty, dark windows.

Her parents aren't here. We're going to be alone. I'm going to be alone with her.

_"Forever," she said, smiling against my cheek. Her fingers draw circles on my stomach and something inside of me is fluttering so hard it feels like airplanes. Jets._

_"Yeah?" She's naked, and I'm touching her legs, and they're soft and trembling._

_"Yeah."_

I crawl out of the car and waddle up to the door in my sweatpants and my tanktop and I'm not wearing a bra and goosebumps prickle over my arms and chest and I cross them, my head down, blood streams hanging in front of my eyes.

When she opens the door, I see her feet first. They're bare and pale and she's wearing jeans already, at this early in the morning. She doesn't say anything and I don't want to look at anywhere but her feet, because then it's like this isn't happening and I'm not really here and if I look Down, maybe I'll fall Down, too.

"Come on."

Her feet disappear. I take a deep breath and look back at my car, chewing my lip. I could leave. I could jump right back into my car and speed away, back to my house, or Tori's, or anywhere, anywhere but here. I could never look at Jade again, I could pretend she was just something I made up, and Tori too, and this whole city, this whole planet.

The carpet sinks beneath my feet. The door closes. It smells too much like a place I've missed.

Jade has one foot on the stair, the other balanced on the toe off the floor. Green eyes cut through the space between us.

_My parents aren't home._

* * *

**A/N:**_ Dunna dunna ~_

_Originally, this was going to be twice as long, but I decided to split this chapter between Cat and Jade because ... it's going to get very ... important. Yes. Important._

_Anyway, sorry this took me a little bit longer than usual. I actually, like, have a life and stuff, with responsibilities. It's super inconvenient. I apologize. _

_You should totally review, though, because ... damn. I can't use my birthday as reasoning anymore. Erhm, late Valentine gifts?_


	9. Chapter 9

_**|Jade|**_

"Stay here."

I watch her for a moment longer, her arms trembling as she sits on the edge of my bed. I study her in silence, eyes narrowed, trailing up her pajama bottoms and her baby blue tank top. She's not wearing a bra and it's obvious and I wonder if she did that on purpose. She used to come to my house minus clothing all of the time. She thought it was funny when she would waltz into my room without panties, or her skirt, because it's not like she had my missing parents to worry about, and I would choke and pull her to the bed in a hormonal rage.

I hate her for what she used to do to me and even more for what she's doing to me now.

I shut the door and move down the hallway, releasing a tight breath that sounds like scissors snapping when it releases. This is ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous, actually. I just wanted her to come over to talk because for the past three days I haven't been able to sleep at all, or eat, or study, or be with Beck, or sing, or anything. It's just her her her, and her and Tori. Stupid, conceited, selfish Vega, hogging what should be mine -

My feet halt.

_No, no, West, get it together_.

Cat isn't mine. She was never really, truly _mine_. Maybe ... maybe once upon a time we were ... she was ... a long time ago, but she isn't now, and she isn't going to be, because I have Beck and I'm not gay or bisexual or any of that. I'm a normal straight girl with a famous future in front of her and a beautiful boyfriend who I can't have sex with anymore because it's like I feel absolutely nothing, not a twinge of pleasure, and - _fuck_.

The last time Cat was in my room, it was when I told her we had to stop messing around, that it wasn't normal, that I wasn't like that. I close my eyes and press my forehead to the wall and remember, as if the walls are bringing it back to me frame by frame.

_Cat's brows furrowed, her fingers still laced behind my neck. It's innocent confusion, like I'm joking, but when I don't say anything else Cat backs away, her hands hovering over my collarbones._

_"What?"_

_"We've gotta stop, Cat." I swallow and toss my chin as if this is nothing, as if it doesn't mean anything. I blink hard._

_"S-Stop?" _

_"Yeah. Stop." _

_I meet her eyes and instantly wish I hadn't because they're broken and bleeding, tears sliding off of her chin like blood from a wound.  
_

"God damnit." I hurl myself off the wall and barrel down the hallway, ripping my door open. She jumps, red hair spinning as she faces me, her deer-like eyes wide like I'm a semi about to crash into her and maybe I am, maybe I want to see her crushed and smeared on the concrete because at least then she can't torture me with her presence. I shut the door behind me and take a deep breath, throwing an accusing finger at her. "I have a boyfriend."

I don't know why I say it. Probably because it's the only thing I can really hold on to. I have a boyfriend. A boyfriend of nearly two and a half years. A boyfriend who loves me and puts up with me and wants a future with me. Why he feels so possessed I haven't the foggiest, but that isn't the point. The point is that he's my _boyfriend _and Cat's ... Cat's messing things up and she doesn't even know it, she's not even trying. Somehow, that makes it even more infuriating, knowing that she isn't trying to break up Beck and I, she isn't trying to stir up all of this old turmoil between us.

It's me, but it's so much easier to blame her.

"I have a boyfriend," I repeat, taking a step closer to her. "I love him and he loves me and what we were, Cat, what you and I were is over and done, understand?"

Cat's lips are parted, brown eyes shimmering up at me. I shake my head, tearing my gaze away. I'm shaking, trembling, and I feel like I might explode and my body parts will lounge in broken pieces around my room. I take a breath that doesn't help me and open my eyes again, focused on the floor.

"You've told me this already."

She says it so softly I barely hear it, instinctively jerking my eyes up to see hers. She's watching me and she's shaking, too, and I wonder if she wants to burst like I do. I let out another breath, crossing my arms, my foot jogging against the floor. "Yeah, well, you ... you keep staring at me, and you're all lovey dovey with Tori -"

"Why do you care what I do with Tori?" Her voice is strangely bold, almost strong, and when I meet her eyes I see an uncertain but definitely present spark of bravery flickering in them. I gape for a moment, shifting my weight onto one hip.

"Because you -" _Because what? Because she doesn't deserve you? Because I want you?_ "Fuck."

Cat fidgets. I watch her, taking a step back, moving toward my window as if the still rising sun is going to help me out any. It doesn't. It just makes me think of those sleepy afternoons I spent in the old hammock in the backyard, tangled in Cat's limbs, running my hands through her hair when it was still brunette. I cut my eyes back to her to find her standing up, hands clenched at her sides. Neither of us move for several long moments and it's just her with angry eyebrows and shaking legs and her glaring at me, reflecting my anger back at me.

"I get it, Jade. You don't - you never wanted me. Fine." Her hands cut the air in front of her before falling limp at her sides again. "You have Beck and I have Tori. It's done. It's done."

I hesitate, my eyes narrowing across at her. "You have Tori?" What did that mean?

Cat frowns, her arms crossing, and it's like we're about to duel right here in the middle of my room, where we used to laugh and touch and breathe and be. I swallow hard and I see her struggle to do the same, eyes darting between mine. She can't have Tori and Tori can't have her. My eyes cut past her for a moment, lingering on one of the few framed pictures Beck and I have together. I'm kissing his cheek. He's grinning into the camera. I don't remember when or where it was taken, or why he looks so happy, but it's like Beck is here, watching me, judging, waiting. My hands are burning, my eyes straining as they shift back to Cat, trembling before me, her eyes swelling with tears.

"I have Tori," she repeats, the words cracking, and then she's spinning on her heel and marching toward my door.

I don't know what makes me all but spring after her, but my hand curls around her wrist and yanks her back, shoves her against the wall. I feel the skin beneath my nails split and she cries loudly, her head hitting the wall with a soft thud. Our hips clash, and her chest meets mine, and brown eyes sink into mine as we still, breaths shattering over the space between us.

It's tense. It's silent. My empty house purrs with memories it refuses to forget, or regret, and then something in her breaks - in us, maybe, because I don't really know who kissed who, who leaned forward first, who decided the fire between us was about to die, but suddenly we're both trying to rekindle it as quickly as possible. Her mouth slams against mine, my hands grabbing her hips and yanking her forward like I want to bury myself within her. Maybe I do. My thoughts scatter like a rock thrown into a pond, the ripples getting farther and farther away. Nothing matters but her, sandwiched between me and the wall, her hot breaths washing into my mouth. She tastes so familiar, like candy and home, and she whimpers against me as I grind forward, heat rushing through both of us like wildfires.

"_Cat_." The word means so much, has always meant so much, too much, pulsing through me like an adrenaline fueled heartbeat. I've missed saying it this way more than I like to admit, and I feel her tremble against me like a flame flickering against the wind. My hands smooth up her tank top, roam against skin I haven't touched in far too long and even though it's been two and a half years, she feels exactly the same, like returning to an old house you used to live in; she feels familiar and too wonderful for her own good. Her chest rises and falls beneath my hands like I'm a puppeteer, fingers raking across her shuddering ribcage. Her lips meet mine again, tongue hot and sweet, and I touch her breasts with tentative hands, trying to appreciate so much all at once. Cat bucks forward and it's like the air is igniting and we're both about to combust just by touching, just by being this close.

I break the kiss, breathe her in as I coast down her jaw. My eyes flutter open, scatter around her neck - I used to leave marks on it all the time, little hickeys, memories of teeth and she used to touch them fondly and tell me it was like I was tattooing my name on her with my mouth. But now the skin is bare, pale and fresh, and like I have a dozen times in the past I bring the skin between my teeth and nibble, each brush of my teeth making her squirm. Feeling her move beneath me is like recalling an old instrument, plucking the strings to make the right sounds, trying to get back in the groove with the musician I used to be.

That's what this. Music. Beats and drums, whimpers and soft words.

I massage one breast, the other crawling under the elastic of her pajama pants to skim along the hot, already wet cotton of her panties. She gasps, my name lost in her throat, and I rub against her, her hips grinding down against me. I pull back once to see her face, flushed red, her eyes screwed shut as her fingers tighten in the back of my head. Her lips are parted, the tip of her tongue running along her lower lip. It's almost like deja vu, only there's no innocent giggling tinging her gasps and whimpers, and the picture of Beck and I behind us is drilling holes into the back of my head.

_Beck_.

It flashes in front of my eyes and then disappears when I push her panties aside and touch her, wetness soaking my fingers. Cat cries out as I circle her clitoris, my lips on her neck, teeth still toying with her skin. She bucks again, turning her head so damp lips meet my cheek. I stroke her clitoris, panting against her neck. When I close my eyes, the walls play a hundred scenes just like this one back to me - Cat, twisted in my sheets, her hands locked over her head as my thigh grinds between her legs, Cat, biting her lips so my mother doesn't hear her as I kiss her trembling hips in the backyard, Cat, against my wall, giggling as I dive up her skirt like she's a goldmine.

This is different, though, because even as my fingers plunge inside of her and I stroke her tight walls and she cries out _God _and _Jade _like they're they only words she knows, somewhere in the back of my mind - and hers - we know that this is temporary, this is different, that things have changed, and we're both probably going to regret it.

I pull my hand out of her pants, detach my teeth from her neck and step back. She sags against the wall, her fingers clutching my shoulders like she'll fall. I swallow as her brown eyes, glazed and disoriented, flutter up to meet mine. Her lips close and she looks around her like she doesn't know where she is, and then her hands are ripping away from me, touching the wall behind her.

"Oh, no," she says, her voice weak and lost.

I take a few slow steps backward until my knees hit the bed. I sink onto the mattress, my eyes shifting almost on instinct to the picture of Beck and I on my bedside table.

"You should go," I say. I look up at her, eyes wide and scared, and I wonder if I look as terrified as she does.

She runs.

* * *

**A/N:**_ Sorry for the semi-late update! Oop, I rhymed. I'm a poet and I didn't know it. I wish I could rhyme all the time._

_...I beg your pardon._

_You should review. It would make me all warm and fuzzy inside. Like a bunny, or a kitten, or a hybrid bunny/kitten. Kunny. Bitten._

_...Your pardon is begged for. Again._


	10. Chapter 10

_**|Tori|**_

It's seriously not healthy how happy I am.

I quite literally bounce into school, smiling like a moron, Trina ducking her head in embarrassment at my heels. I wave at one of my teachers as he walks past, grinning happily and greeting everyone who crosses me. I spin to face my sister, her brown eyes tugged down like anchors are dragging them away from me. Her hand flattens over her face as I wish her a good day, not even bothered by her behavior. I am too happy for that.

It feels like ... like sunshine, like yellow beams of light are just under my skin. I smile goofily to myself, chewing my lip as I spin the combination on my locker. _Make It Shine_ blinks at me and for the first time, I completely and totally understand what it means. I feel like I'm shining - glowing, even, like a new star is nestled inside of me somewhere waiting to burst.

I swear, if my life was a movie, "Walking On Sunshine" would be blaring right about now.

I open my locker and start shuffling my books around, very aware of my heart in my ears, the glee in my veins, and I allow myself to think her name, just once.

_Cat._

I can't even contain the squeal that vibrates behind my lips. Thinking about her ... it's been driving me crazy, but in a good way. A really, really good way. I can feel her in my chest, just like she described, my heart throwing each beat with a whisper of her name against my bones. _CatCatCat_, engraving her there, like a tattoo on my ribs. She's brightened everything and I didn't even know things were dull before - it's like not knowing you needed glasses and then suddenly having perfect vision. Everything's sharp. Everything's her. I see her everywhere.

Speaking of seeing her ... I turn from my locker, throwing my eyes over the crowding students, searching for that undeniable shock of red hair. I don't see her at first, but that doesn't simmer the flame that's growing inside of me. She'll turn up. She hardly ever misses school. I cheerfully face my locker again, pulling out my books and shutting the metal door with a clang. I spin on my heel to march off to find Cat and slam right into a brick wall of a chest.

Hands grab my shoulders, a soft 'oof' escaping my lips.

"Sorry! I wasn't - oh, hey!" I grin up at Beck, dark eyes meeting my own. I steady myself, putting some distance between us - I don't need Jade thinking I'm after her boyfriend, after all - and smile brightly up at him. My cheeks are even starting to hurt, I swear. "What's up?"

It isn't until now that I notice he's not smirking casually like he usually is, and his eyes ... they're jerking frantically toward the doors, and his hands are twisting, and he just seems ... off. He smiles uneasily at me, a hand raising to rub at the dark skin of his neck. "Have you seen Jade?"

My smile twitches into its opposite. Jade? Why would he be asking me that? It's not like we hang out, or that I have any reason to know where she would be. "Uh, no?"

Beck plucks nervously at the navy blue material of his shirt, sighing heavily. His lip tucks between his teeth for a moment before his eyes turn back to me. "I think she's mad at me. She didn't text me all weekend."

I gauge him slowly. I wonder how much about Jade's past that he knows. I wonder ... I shake my head mentally. No. I am not about to spill anything to Beck. As far as I know, what happened between Cat and Jade was before Beck was even in the picture, and that simply isn't my business. Still, I can't help but wonder if he knows who Jade used to be; if he even understands who she is now.

I wonder if anyone does.

I shrug, reaching out to pat his arm in comfort. "I don't know, but if I see her, I'll tell her you were looking for her." The bell erupts above us and once more he throws a nervous smile in my direction before he slinks off. I frown in thought on the way to my first hour, my eyes still scrounging around for Cat. It's weird for Jade to be gone, too. She's so on top of everything at school, I would have never considered her the type to skip or fake sick or anything. I dodge through kids and into my first hour, eyes snapping to Cat's desk. It's empty. I frown again, gazing around the classroom before I drop into my desk.

"Hey, Vega. What's going on?" Andre's elbow is on my desk, his warm smile nearly blinding. I find my earlier happiness returning - maybe Cat's just running late. No need to panic like Beck was. It's not like I have to be obsessive or controlling or anything. Everything about this is so new, so fresh and real and ... obviously, I've dated before, but - wait. Dated? Am I dating Cat? The word seems so elementary. I mean, thinking about her and I, twisted in my bed like we were, the way she kissed me ... I don't know. Whatever we are, it's more than anything I ever was with any stupid boy.

"Oh, you know. Signing autographs, fighting off the paparazzi - the usual."

Andre laughs, chocolate hands running over his chin as he tilts back into his desk. His eyes skitter away, his smile faltering somewhat as they stick on Cat's empty desk. "Where's Red?"

I shrug, trying to come off as nonchalant. I don't know what Cat's ideas are for ... for being public. I swallow, my throat suddenly tight. Oh, God. I hadn't given that aspect much thought - being ... being public about it. I swallow my fear and rub my forehead, smiling uneasily at Andre as the bell screams down at us again, turning in my seat to face the front. My eyes turn toward Beck as he ducks into his seat, a frown on his lips, a thick crease in his brow. I jerk my eyes to the empty seat beside him, and then back to Cat's chair.

There's a red flag raising somewhere in the back of my head, but I do a good job of ignoring it.

My hours go by slowly, as if the second hand on the clock is moving in slow motion. The light that had set me aflame this morning has all but burned out. Between classes I text Cat more than once, only to receive nothing in reply. At lunch I scamper off to the bathroom, complaining about cramps to Beck and Andre and Robbie so they don't dare follow. I shut myself into the sticky stall, pressing my phone to my ear. I jog my high-heel off of the green linoleum, perking as I hear a click on the other end.

"Hello? Cat?"

There's silence, and what I think is breathing. I frown into the receiver, pressing it harder to my ear.

"Cat? Are you there? It's Tori."

"_Tori_."

The word breaks through the phone like a rock on glass, shattering between her mouth and my ear. Something in me seizes, an inner instinct going off. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.

"Are you all right?" My voice is strained and high, panicked, my back pressing to the stall wall. The door opens and closes, a string of laughter following clattering footsteps beyond the door. I cover my hand over the receiver and turn away from the cracks in the door. "Cat?"

"I did something really bad, Tori," she whispers, the words barely audible through the white noise of the call. My frown etches itself into my lips, my eyes following the lines in the tile wall.

"Are you hurt? Do you need help?"

A whine echoes into the cavity of my ear, like she's far away, like she's trying so hard to hear herself. "Can you come after school?"

I rub my forehead, ducking slightly as I watch the train of feet walk out of the bathroom, the door swinging shut and closing me in with silence and the hum of the fluorescent lights above me. "I can come right now."

"No, no." She breathes in, the air shuddering like water twirling down a drain. "Wait. After school, okay?"

There's a click and then she's gone and I'm left staring at my 'call ended' screen, running my thumb slowly over the keys. The bell sounds, the halls filling with noise. I contemplate leaving right now, just marching out of the school and getting into my car and driving off, but I have Trina to take home, not to mention my parents would kill me if I skipped class, and ... I frown, slowly shrugging out of the bathroom. She sounded so distraught on the phone ...

_I did something really bad, Tori._

I cross my arms and slink down the hallway, into my next class. I move through them almost subconsciously, like I'm not really there. I'm not, actually. I'm in the janitor's closet with her lips pressing against mine, I'm in my bed with Cat's head on my shoulder, watching her sleep, I'm in her arms when I woke up that morning, I'm kissing her in my doorway, I'm watching her drive away, smiling and waving, I'm in the bathroom stall frowning into the phone as her voice breaks into pieces until the letters of her words are littered like glass at my feet, as if the pillars that were holding her together are crumbling.

I just saw her yesterday. What could have gone so horribly wrong between now and then?

If I thought time was moving slowly before lunch, it's even slower now. Every hour is torture, my eyes glued to the clock, moving robot-like through the motions. I take a test in my government class that takes me twice as long to finish as everyone else because I have to keep going back and reading the questions over and over. All of the words have turned into _I did something really bad, Tori_, and the answers are blurs because what does that even mean and when I do finish I can't remember what the subject was even about.

I've chewed my lip raw and by the time the bell finally rings, I practically run to my locker. I throw everything inside, grab my phone, and dial her again as I steer my way out to the parking lot. I push more than one kid, mumbling apologies as I press the phone to my ear. I'm not usually rude at all, and I'm pretty good at keeping my cool in the most frantic of situations ... but this is Cat, and she's ... she's changed me. All of my nerves are begging for her and I've never felt this way about anyone, ever, and it's almost instinctive to reach out to her, to get to her as soon as I can, like it's programmed specifically into the very cords and strings that make up my DNA. They spell out her name, and my heart has aligned with it.

She doesn't answer. I drop into my car and clench the steering wheel, taking a few, deep breaths. Remember, Tori, I tell myself, squeezing the wheel - this is Cat. Cat is very odd. She probably forgot to feed her fish or something and it died - if Cat even has a fish. Or she lost that shirt I let her borrow a few weeks ago, or she ruined a library book. I'm jumping to conclusions about the girl who exaggerates everything. Calm. Breathe.

My self meditation does little to help me - it takes Trina nearly three minutes to get to my car (I know because I'm counting), and then I'm hurling out of the parking lot like we're being chased. Trina clutches the dashboard with one hand, the other over her heat.

"For Bieber's sake don't kill me!"

I glare at her, my eyes narrowing. "...'Bieber's sake'?"

"What?" Trina pouts. "It's better than using His name." She points toward the ceiling of the car. "There's rules against that, you know."

My eyes roll. "You don't get to comment on my driving. You wrecked your car."

The mature being that my sister is throws her hands in the air. "I didn't wreck anything. That fire hydrant wrecked my car, and my manicure."

I manage to not throw her out of the car before I pull into the driveway, jerking into reverse as soon as the door closes behind her. I can hear her yelling at me as I pull away, but I push the speed limit and zip out of there as fast as I can, legally.

But then I remember _I did something really bad, Tori_, and I forget about obeying the law for once.

* * *

**A/N:** _This chapter wasn't supposed to be so long, nor was it supposed to take so long to update, but I have school and a life and friends, believe it or not. For that, I apologize. _

_Anyway, the next chapter should be soon to come, since this was just to get to Cat's perspective, where all the angst is happening at the moment. That's the best part, the angst. It's like the pickles of the burger._

_Review!_


	11. Chapter 11

_**|Cat|**_

Down

down

_down_.

I hang up without saying goodbye because my throat gave out. I stare at the screen for a moment, my eyes fluttering closed as I hear her voice echo in my skull.

_Are you hurt?_

I cross my arms and squeeze my chest until it hurts, feel my nails scratch the fabric of my shirt, searching for skin. I want to hurt on the outside. I want to resemble the pieces I know I am under my flesh, within my bones. Something high pitched and painful scratches out of my throat and I dig harder, fingernails tearing desperately at my clothes. I want to dig inside, dig down, downdowndown, until I can feel tissue and muscle tearing away, giving out, I want to be hollow and empty, like my heart aching to pulse, with its stupid talking and its stupid whispers and its stupid engraving words all over my insides, the scars it beats against me, _JadeJadeToriJadeTori_ -

I don't remember walking to my window, but I press my palms against it if just to keep them away from myself. The glass warms under my hands, my open eyes watching the lines of heat that ripple out from the curves of my fingers. My breath fans between them, filling the spaces with fog. I turn my head up, eyes on the sky, the soft baby blue blanket that wraps around the sun and I wonder what it feels like to be safe, to be tucked somewhere close like a baby in a womb, to not think or know or feel anything other than safety, other than home.

I remember feeling that in arms pale as snow, eyes like forests and a tongue slathered in the sweet tang of coffee. But her words burned that home down, the ashes were left to smolder in the cage of my chest, to fill up my body like dust.

I felt it again not a day earlier, just yesterday, with skin that smelled of fruit and was the color of milk chocolate, eyes of Earth, a soul that called out to mine that had yet to do anything but wonder and learn.

My hands clench against the window, my hips trembling as Tori's memory is swallowed up by one much greater, a loud gasp ripping over my tongue as I remember Jade slamming me into the wall, her lips crushing against mine, hips striking hips like rocks trying to spark. I remember her fingers tracing under my breasts like she was trying to recall how to write, drawing out all of these old words we used to say stored in my chest like treasures, the letters writing themselves over my skin;_ forever always here you me us this **now**_.

Rivers soak my cheeks, my lips, my eyes squeezing shut to try and dam them. I turn blindly, feeling with my feet until I hit the edge of my bed. I crumble, fingers pulling desperately at my comforter and pulling the blanket over my head, shadows meeting my eyes. My body seizes, the ghost of her still there, haunting me from the inside out. I can still feel her between my legs, my muscles climbing, riding with her, like remembering how to ride a bike - I never forgot her, she was just locked away.

But her lips and her fingers and her eyes were the keys and Pandora's box has been ripped open.

There isn't time here. I don't know how long I stay under there, breathing in pocket of hot air beneath the pink fabric, but I don't want to crawl out. I want to bury deeper, down, six feet under, until the dirt under my fingernails turns them black. I want to rot and get eaten away, empty sockets and useless bones in a box with no name.

I think I'm dreaming when I hear someone knocking on the door. It's distant and soft, knuckles rolling on wood downstairs and through the hall. My puffy eyes blink open, met only with darkness, and for a fleeting moment I think I've gone blind. I lift a groggy hand, pushing the blanket aside, feeling my pupils constrict painfully as light and my bright pink walls assault them. I sit up slowly, my limbs creaking like an old house. I feel like that, like a forgotten building, abandoned and falling down.

I feel condemned, like they're days away from tearing me Downdowndown.

A voice swims up the stairs, a whisper I can't understand. I stumble out of the sheets, my feet gliding over the carpet as I reach my bedroom door. A name surfaces, my brain still making connections somewhere inside of my skull, and then I'm gripping the door handle and throwing it open.

"Tori!"

I scare myself with how loud I'm shouting, like I'm about to fall or I'm on fire or something - but it feels the same, and she needs to get up here, I need her, I need her now. "Tori!"

"I'm right here, Cat!"

And then she's swinging around the corner, brunette hair spinning after her. One hand is braced on the wall, the other pressing against her chest like she's trying to keep her heart in. My eyes snap to hers, locking in like a deadbolt, and I'm taking two long steps to slam into her, arms winding around her waist. I feel the breath crush out of her as I breathe in, the smell of her perfume swimming into my lungs. I turn my face into her neck, nails digging into the stripes of her t-shirt. She feels so solid and real and it lifts me Up so fast I forget how to inhale, half expecting my toes will hover right off the floor.

"Tori," I mumble, my next breath coming in sharply. My nose brushes against her neck as her arms curl around my shoulders, fingers in my hair.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

She pulls me back, dark eyes darting over me like she's searching for a wound. I feel heavy and so dirty, so dirty, and Tori can make me clean, I know she can.

"Come here." I reach out, taking her by the wrists. I twitch a smile up at her, pulling her back into my room. Her brows meet over her nose, gauging me. I giggle - she looks so confused, so very lost, and as I pull her into my room and close the door behind her, she becomes like stone, a nervous rock under my hand. Teeth pull at my lip as I guide her hands to my hips, eyes slowly trailing up her neck, resting on her mouth. I lick my own.

I'm dirty, Tori can make me clean - I'm Up, Tori can take me higher.

I turn, pulling her with me. She's silent, her lips parting like she wants to talk but can't remember how to form words. The wall meets my back and her hips hesitantly meet my own. I smile softly, my hands releasing her wrists to drift up her chest. She hitches when my fingertips graze over her breasts, smirking slightly. I almost feel like ... like a snake, like Tori's a mouse, and suddenly I just want to eat her up.

"Come here," I repeat, the words a whisper, tilting my head up so my lips graze over hers. She shivers, her head shaking slowly.

"Cat, I thought -"

I kiss her, cutting the words off, and a moan of surprise vibrates her lips. I pull her closer, my arms circling around her neck. The hands on my hips tighten and I smile behind the kiss, teasing her lips with my tongue, pushing my hips forward.

_I'm dirty I'm dirty I'm dirty get her out get her out get Jade out_ -

"Tori." I mumble against her lips, pulling her closer. She gasps again and I can feel her hands shaking, her legs wobbling, and then she's drifting along the hem of my shirt, her fingers silently asking for permission.

"I don't understand, why are we-"

I kiss her again, stealing the words out of her lungs and bringing them into mine. My hands slink down her chest again, following her arms. I blink my eyes open, licking my lips as I put distance between our faces. I push her hands up my shirt, her arms tensing, trying to pull back. "It's okay," I say against her cheek, smiling. "Touch me."

_Get her out get her out I'm dirty I'm dirty getJadeoutofme_ -

Her hands roam tentatively over my stomach, fingers trembling over my ribs. I urge her further, her fingers running along the length of my bra. I hear her swallow, my lips turning back to her neck to kiss her again and again, her body stiffening when my tongue reaches out to taste her.

"Please," I say, the words barely audible, but even I can hear the strain within that one word, the panic. I need her now, faster, here, pleasepleaseplease before I fall downdown_down_.

"Cat, I don't ... I can't ..."

"_Please_." It's sharper, louder - I'm begging, my Jade mask slipping, my hands pulling her harder, closer, fingers circling around her wrist and shoving her fingers past the waistband of my sweatpants. Tori jerks as her fingers meet the wet cotton of my panties and I gasp, pushing my hips down, my eyes closing. "Please, Tori, please, please -"

_She's inside of me please get her out I'm dirty I'm **dirty**_ -

She tries to pull back again, her fingers gliding over my clothed core and I gasp again. I yank her forward, my fingers tight enough to bruise her wrist but I don't care, I need her, I need to get Jade out, to replace her with a new hand, a new face, a new name, I don't want Jade to kill me from the inside out. I have a virus and Tori is the cure. I'm sick. I'm sick and dirty and falling down, down, downdownDOWNDOWN.

"Please! Get her out! Get her off of me!"

I don't know how loud I'm screaming, but Tori's saying my name, over and over, tugging her hand out of my grasp and my knees fail, buckle and break, and the floor meets them with a slam. My bones ache and I curl, bringing my knees to me, feeling Jade in my veins, burning under my skin and scalding my skeleton and I'm filled with the ashes of the fire she set, the broken remains of the house we built with our hands and lips and words, our forevers, turning to dust inside of me.

Tori swims in front of my eyes, her image drowning in the oceans that have puddled in my eyes. Her fingers smooth through my hair.

"Talk to me, Cat, baby, please ..."

I shake my head, the words sticking in my throat. She shouldn't be touching me, she shouldn't be holding on. I'll only bring her here with me, Down. I don't want to do that to her, I don't want to see her in the same kind of pieces I am.

"Jade," I say, the word acid on my lips, burning my tongue.

Tori's eyebrows screw over her forehead. "What did she do to you?"

"I ..." I swallow, closing my eyes. I don't want to see her face, I don't want to watch what ripples my words will create when they land in the lakes of her pupils. I shake my head, pressing my knuckles to my eyes. "I let her ... we ..."

I don't have to see her to know that it's clicked, that she knows, and I sob hard, turning away from her, the wall to my cheek. I want it to pull me in, make me a house again, with doors and windows and stairs and dark corners, so I can lock myself up, so I can be condemned and torn apart.

"Cat ... I thought we, we were going to be, how could you?"

Her last words are whispers, the black of hurt filling my ears like smoke. _How could you?_ How could I?

I hear her stand up. Her feet slide across the floor and the door opens. I peek from the slices in my hair, her bronze legs pausing, shaking. I can feel her eyes on me, burning holes into my hands, and then she's gone, the smell of her perfume following after her.

She doesn't slam the door and the walls of my room are a tomb of wrongs.

* * *

**A/N:** _Because Tori's chapter was a filler, at least at this point, I decided I would post this chapter ASAP to keep the plot moving along. _

_I hope you all had a great weekend! I have a load of projects coming up that I need to get done, so the next update might take awhile. In any case, you should review. It brings me joy when the stress of school work brings me Down._


	12. Chapter 12

_**|Jade|**_

I remember vividly the day my first dog died. I was seven, and his small, yellow body was crumpled in the road and my mother had pressed the back of her hand over her mouth to keep herself from throwing up. The blood had filled the cracks in the road.

I stood watching from the porch, hands trembling, eyes wide. I watched the last wheezing breath leave his muzzle. And I remember thinking, _nothing will ever hurt as much as this does_.

I was wrong.

"Jade? You look sick."

I blink, turning slowly until dark eyes hover in front of my own. Beck's frowning, one hand propping his head up, the other reaching toward my knee. I flinch away instinctively, my hands raising as if to defend myself, like he's attacking me. His frown deepens, the lines of his face like scars, and I shake my head, standing up. I wobble on my feet - I don't remember the last time I actually ate anything - and crane a hand over my eyes. The courtyard is bright, the familiar chatter of kids laughing and eating slamming against my ears, a collage of smells assaulting my nose. I wrinkle it, shaking my head again.

"I'm fine." But it doesn't take a genius to know I'm lying, and Beck stands up slowly, reaching once more for me. I step back, touching my woozy forehead. "Just ... stay, all right? I'm okay, I ... it's a girl thing." I try to slide a teasing grin at him, but it falls apart on my lips and dies away. Beck sits again, eying his pizza before jerking his gaze back to me.

As Robbie sits beside him, he sighs. "You're sure? I can, I don't know, go to the nurse with you -"

"I'm a big girl." My lips twitch again, trying to come to life, but as soon as my eyes skitter past him to see Tori approaching, with her hair up and her eyes down, fingers clenched around a brown paper bag, I feel my face die once more. She looks so ... so ghost-like, her eyes empty and lost, and as she sits next to Robbie our eyes meet for the briefest of moments and I know she knows.

Something grabs my throat, icy fingers clenching around the apple and choking and God, _fuck_.

I storm away, my hands fists at my sides. This is all her fault. This all started with Vega. Vega and her stupid, nosy, conceited, stupid stupid stupid -

My eyes are burning. I fly into the janitor's closet, shutting the door so hard behind me the glass rattles. I gasp at the wall, cleaning chemicals replacing the scent of chili dogs and greasy hamburgers. My knuckles meet the white brick over and over again, my breaths coming out in sharp slices, like nails ripping through my lungs. I claw at the wall until my fingernails pulse and my bruised knuckles make me gasp in pain, the cool of the bricks meeting my forehead.

I don't even know why I came to school. God knows I didn't sleep because my bed - no, my whole room was a prison and the bags under my eyes are proof of that, and the kink in my back from crawling on the couch at three AM is just continuing punishment. I want to be punished. I want to hurt. I know I deserve it. But I couldn't stay home, either - _she _was there, the smell of vanilla thick in the walls of my room, like she was living in them.

Part of me was scared as I pulled into the parking lot this morning, my eyes subconsciously searching for her car. But she wasn't there, and her seat was empty, and it was just me wringing my hands in my lap and swallowing thickly as Beck approached me in the hall, his face glowing, arms out, and I ... I didn't hug him back.

_You look sick._

That's because I _am _sick. She's gotten under my nails, my skin, my bones, like a virus, like cancer, and the only cure is her and she only makes me sicker. I bite my thumb, my back against the wall and I let my knees sink, hitting the concrete floor with a soft thud. None of this was supposed to happen. Vega wasn't supposed to stir up things that I forgot mattered, she wasn't supposed to take Cat, I wasn't supposed to care. We had our roles, we had our directions and the curtain had closed a long time ago on the act that starred Cat and Jade. The show is over. The lights are off. You can't just go around turning them back on.

My eyes close. It all slams into me so fast, my brain scrambles trying to keep up - the way she felt, slick and hot and too familiar against my fingers, the mew of her voice as it ricocheted off my eardrum, her hips moving in sync with the thrusts of my fingers as I stroked her from the inside, the way her face was flushed and beautiful, the sweet tang of candy as I kissed her, reclaimed her, how she didn't pull away. And nothing else mattered but those few minutes with her between me and the wall, just her, just me, and how quickly it rained down on us, how strong the tremors were when it all fell apart.

"Jade."

I snap my head up. Tori's standing in the threshold, slowly closing the door behind her. The click is loud and final and she's left staring down at me, her hands limp at her sides. My eyes narrow. She looks like shit, frankly - washed out, the gray of her sweatshirt making her usually glowing bronze skin look dull. Her lifeless hair is up in the laziest ponytail I've ever seen on her - even I made an effort today, my boots clicking as they straighten across the floor.

"Are you going to beat me up or something, Vega?" I perk a brow at her. Something in me tries to catch, a fire trying to spark, but it dies out. I have no energy to be the Jade she knows, so I turn my trembling eyes away and press the back of my hand to my mouth. Trying not to throw up. Trying to remember how hard it was when my dog died only to wish this pain was as minuscule as that. "By all means, go ahead."

There's silence. I hear her feet move across the floor and when I glance up again, she's crossing her legs and sitting in front of me. I pull my legs back out of instinct, frowning at her. Her eyes are on her hands, fingers twisting in her lap.

"I came in here to ... to ..." Her voice cracks and she swallows, takes a breath that makes her shoulders shake. "To yell at you, but now I can't ... I don't ..." Her eyebrows shiver over her nose, knitting together. She rips her eyes up to meet mine, the dark room and the distance between us making them look black and shrouded. "She really loves you, you know."

I try to swallow but it sticks in my throat. The word slams against my chest and worms its way into my heart, but it's already rotted.

"I know." I do know that. I've known that for a long time. It's hard to ignore the way she looks up at me, so admiring, so ... so. I look away from Tori, balancing my hand on my chin and studying the white brick walls. "I think she loves you, too."

Tori scoffs. I whip my head around, narrowing my gaze at her.

"I'm serious," I say, pulling my knees to my chest, arms wrapping around them in a hold strong enough to choke. "When she came over, she ... I tried ... I was trying to cut the ties, okay? And she said ... she said, 'I have Tori' and ..." I drift off, the rotten apple in my ribcage twisting.

"Then why would she do this to me? If she has me, if ... if I had her, like I thought I did, then why ..." She spreads her hands, the palms flat and facing up. "Why this?"

"Because she's Cat," I say slowly, frowning, her name sugary on my tongue. My eyes close, a hand pressing to my forehead. "Because she's never been able to say no to me."

I contemplate telling Tori how it felt to fall in love with Cat, how it felt like spinning up and up ... but then I remember - she already does know how it feels. I look at her again, the anger dwindling in her eyes as she stares at her lap, tear drops sprinkling her jeans. She sniffles loudly and presses the back of her hand to her mouth and I wonder if she feels like throwing up, if she wishes this didn't hurt so bad.

"Do you love her?" Tori says the words softly, her hand partially muffling them. She looks me in the eye. The bell rings in the hallway.

I push myself to a stand but Tori doesn't move, simply gazes up at me from the floor. "More than you could imagine."

I start to push open the closet door, the sound of Tori shuffling to her feet behind me. I flinch as a hand touches my shoulder, stopping me, the eruption of feet pounding in the outside hall filling the closet.

"Actually, I can imagine," she says, and then I'm moving away from her and into the hall. I don't look back.

I find Beck at his locker, glancing in my direction with a soft smile as he shuts the metal door with a clang. He reaches out for me, trying to pull me into a hug, but I raise my hand, blocking his arm. Frowning quizzically at me, he pauses, arms lowering to his side. "You okay?"

How he could possibly care this much ... how he's been with me for this long, I'll never understand. Beck is a nice guy, a good boyfriend, and in ten years I know his name will be in lights and he always wanted that to be with my name next to his, but it won't be. It won't be because it was never supposed to be, because I'm not the Jade West he thinks he knows.

Hell, even I don't know what Jade West I am.

"Beck, I." The words catch in my throat. Tori walks past us, her hand in her hair. I watch her back for a moment and swallow hard. "We have to talk."

It's a cliche set of words, but what play would we be in if it wasn't a little cheesy?

I know he knows what's going to happen, his shoulders slowly sagging. He nods, swiping black hair from his eyes. "After school?"

"Sure."

He doesn't hug me or kiss me or even touch me as he moves away to his next class and I'm left standing there, on my own, on this side of the battlefield. There is no Cat here, no Tori, and now, no Beck. And I don't even know what all of this means, what it's supposed to mean, or what's supposed to happen now. But if there's anything about Jade West that I do know, it's that she is more than the little girl watching her dog die from the porch.

The car is coming, but it hasn't hit the cat yet.

* * *

**A/N:** _This took, like, a week, and for that, you have my sincerest apologies. I got the biggest assignment of my life in my English class, so my time will be cut even shorter than it already is._

_Not to mention I started this new, awesome anime that has consumed my entire life ... er ... I mean ... I was saving the world or some shit, no need to thank me._

_Actually, you can thank me. In reviews. They make me quite happy!_


	13. Chapter 13

_**|Tori|**_

Cat hasn't been to school in four days. No one has really noticed except Andre and Robbie and I because the rest of the school is far too hyped up on the most recent drama that exploded like fireworks from mouth to mouth.

_Did you hear about Beck and Jade? I heard she broke up with him. I heard he broke up with her. I heard it was mutual. I think they hate each other. I heard it was just a break. I think she cheated on him. No, he cheated on her. I wonder how long Beck is going to wait until he dates again. I thought they were going to make it. I thought they really loved each other. It's like if Brad and Angelina broke up -_

"Why don't they all shut up?"

Robbie dunks beside me, frowning around the courtyard. I shrug halfheartedly, subconsciously searching for her - for Jade, I mean. I know I probably shouldn't, and it's not like she deserves it, but ... I just, I'm really worried about her. She comes to school every day if just to prove something, to show people that she's strong, but I can see the faltering in her eyes. I can see her start to break, and every day Cat isn't here cracks pieces off of her.

And me.

Andre picks at his food, his frown mirroring Robbie's. "Because they're brainless and have nothing else to do. This is the most drama there's been since Tori moved here."

I glance up, twisting my lips. He's right, though. The school hasn't been this alive with gossip since I stumbled awkwardly through the doors and claimed to be an artist of some kind. Beck and Jade were it - _the _couple, _the _boy and girl everyone else wanted to be. They are almost fundamental in the way the school works; even the teachers seem at a lost of what to say, what to do. Beck and Jade have just always _been_. It's like some natural world order has been messed up, like we're backwards and inside out.

Beck's sitting with a group of boys a couple of tables away and he probably notices the eyes all swiveled around to occasionally access him, like they're waiting for something, but no one knows what that something is. I find myself staring a lot longer than I should, ripping my gaze back to my pizza. My stomach twists and I push it away, sighing heavily and gliding my fingers into my hair. I wonder if he knows. I wonder what Jade told him, if it was a lie or the truth that hurt him like this, because anyone with half a brain would realize that he's all torn up and Jade is too, but I feel like I'm the only one that really knows why. And that's scary, because I regret even asking questions - I wish I didn't know, I wish I had never pressed Cat, called Jade, let myself fall ... hitting the bottom was hard. It was jolting. I still feel like I'm just checking each limb to see if it's broken or not.

Jade doesn't come to lunch and the bell rings and we disperse, but every hallway, every classroom is filled to the ceiling with words, back and forth - _Beck and Jade I can't believe it it actually happened what now what are they going to do who is the best class couple now_ -

My last few hours are spent with me huddled in my desk, pressing my wrists against my ears. I don't want to hear any of this, I want all of them to shut up. Everything was fine and relatively normal a couple of weeks ago. Jade was with Beck, Cat was just my ditzy friend, all of these feelings hadn't been created and things were okay. I was happy. It seems like such a long time ago, like being with Cat slowed time down and ... I guess she did. Everything was in slow motion and heightened, overexposed frames of time burning behind my eyelids every time they close.

It doesn't make much sense, not if I let the rational part of my brain sneak in. It's only been a couple of weeks since I ... what, discovered these feelings? Or has it been longer? Were they always there, just beneath the surface, waiting to have a reason to bubble? And I hate thinking of what Jade said, that Cat loves me, because this isn't what love is. If she ... loves me, like that, then she wouldn't have done this. This wouldn't have happened. I'd be with Cat and Jade would have just had to have lived with her mistake.

I don't like wondering if I love Cat or not. I don't want to know because it doesn't really matter, now. It's all done with, and I drive home with Trina babbling mindlessly at my side, only partly paying any attention to the road. I could brush this over easily in a few weeks. I could go back to the Tori I was before all of this went down. I'll go on a date with a nice boy, I'll get the butterflies, I'll kiss him, I'll be with him ... and I'll think about Cat in the pocket of my room in the dark and keep her a secret, the same way she kept Jade a secret.

Rubbing my chin, I fall out of my car as soon as I pull into the driveway. It isn't until then that I notice Trina has stopped talking and I raise my eyes slowly to see if she had asked me a question without my noticing, only to see her mouth screwed and her finger pointing beyond me.

"Whose car is that?"

I follow her point and almost choke, nearly dropping my purse. I don't answer her, instead sprinting to the door and ripping it open. An air-conditioned breeze spills out to meet my warm cheeks and -

Cat is sitting on my couch and my mother is smiling up at us, her hands folded in her lap.

"Cat just beat you here." She stands up. Cat turns over her shoulder, brown eyes peeking through her bleeding hair. Trina shrugs and moves past me but I'm locked in place because, she's just, Cat is so ... so _pretty_. She smooths out her little yellow dress when she stands up, chewing her lower lip before she bounces on her toes, turning to my mother.

"Thanks for keeping me company! Can Tori and I go up in her room?"

A flood of anger pushes through me so fast, I have to gasp to breathe in. How does she even have the nerve to show up here, all ... glowing and pretty and nice-looking and so ... innocent? This isn't fair. This is so not fair at all. She's breaking every rule. We're supposed to stay away from each other, we're supposed to be enemies from now on. That's how these things work, and I'm going to become old Tori again with crushes on boys and dating boys and being with boys.

"Of course! I can make some snacks for you guys if you want?" Mom turns the question to me, smiling hopefully.

"No." It comes out flat and hard. My mother's lips jerk. "Cat's just grabbing something and leaving, anyway." I shift my purse, narrowing my gaze on Cat. She looks to her feet, but follows me in silence as I move up the stairs. Trina's music is already on, floating down the hallway from her room. I hit the door to mine with my shoulder, slipping into the comfortable space, until now I can feel the tension building up in the room the minute Cat crosses the threshold. I drop my purse on the edge of my bed, sinking onto the covers. Cat hovers near the door but I don't look at anything but her feet, watching as she steps in on the tips of her toes and pushes the door shut behind her.

There's silence for a long while, the tension so thick I can feel it building in my lungs like fog when I breathe in. I exhale hard. It's ridiculous, but I can feel every nerve just by having her this close to me - they're all ringing, calling out for her, wanting her closer, here, _this_. I rub my elbows and lean forward, daring my eyes to travel up her legs. They hover around her knees, swallow her thighs, coast up the edges of her yellow dress until I'm focusing on her chest. It rises and falls unsteadily, her hands hovering over her abdomen and her fingers are picking at the others, and then I'm on her throat, then her chin, and then my eyes lock with hers through the gaps of her hair.

"What, Cat?"

She jumps when I speak, her back knocking against the door. And then she's sucking a deep breath, closing her eyes, and taking two long steps in my direction. I stiffen, only for her to fall to her knees at the edge of the bed and her head is in my lap. I lift my hands up in surprise, her own gripping my legs and holding me in place. It's a desperate embrace, clear in every trembling bone in her body. Her back shakes and I can feel her nails ripping across the denim of my jeans.

"I'm sorry," she says, her voice lost in the space between my knees. "I'm so sorry, Tori. I didn't do it on purpose, okay? Believe that, please. I didn't do it on purpose. She just - she was there, and she was so close to me, and it was like I was old Cat, young Cat, and I saw something in her eyes, Tori, that was like old Jade, and I miss old Jade, Tori, I miss her so much, and I couldn't help it, I couldn't stop myself, and I know that makes me a bad person and I know you hate me for it and that's okay but please, please, Tori -" She lifts her head, then and I'm paralyzed, frozen as her nose meets mine. "Please believe me. I didn't do it on purpose."

My mouth falls open and closes and I can't talk because my brain says she's a cheating liar but my heart ... my heart believes her. And maybe that's just because I am desperate for it to not be entirely Cat's fault, but whatever the case, I know she's being true. I know she would never go out with an intention to hurt me, but ...

"You hurt me." I blink and tears spill over. I don't bother wiping them away, and Cat's hands start to raise to hold my cheeks but I lift a quick hand and smack them away. "You hurt me so much, Cat, and I don't - even if you didn't mean it, even if you didn't do it on purpose, you still did it. And it still hurts." My arms are trembling and I can't hold her stare, jerking my gaze away to stare at the wall. "I'm not going to be this girl, Cat. The one that ... that gets hurt because you haven't gotten over the past yet."

Cat's hands rest on my legs again. I swallow, finally lifting a palm to wipe away my tears. My throat hurts, jumping as I try to swallow around the swollen lump.

"Have you ever been in love before, Tori?"

I lift my gaze to her, shifting my eyes between hers. She's watching me intently and she's having trouble swallowing, too. I shake my head slowly because I can't distinguish what I feel for Cat, don't know what to call it because I have no basis to compare.

"It's like how they say. Falling. Except up." Her eyes flick upward, lingering on the ceiling. A faint smile plays with her lips as her eyes flutter closed; remembering. "Falling up and up, Tori. She was so sweet, old Jade was so nice. She didn't treat me like everyone else, she took me seriously, she told me I was pretty and worthwhile and she told me I wasn't crazy." Her eyes open, still on the ceiling, and I watch as her chest heaves once, a strangled sob coming from her. "I loved - I love her, Tori. And I don't - I think, I think I always will, but I can't help that, and no one can, not when it's like it was, my heart will always ..." She presses her hand over her sternum and I imagine her heart pounding, _JadeJadeJade_.

"Cat ..." I reach out, her eyes following my hand as it touches her cheek. And this isn't the face of someone who would try to hurt me, this isn't someone who would toy with my emotions and try to inflict pain on me just because. This is a girl who fell into terrible circumstances, a girl who got confused and left behind - she fell in love.

"But it's okay, Tori, because if you want - if you give me just one more chance, if you just let me prove to you that I can - that I can forget her, that I can be with someone else, I can! I can, Tori, I promise, and I will try so hard for you because you've never hurt me and I don't deserve it but, but I want -"

"Cat." I press a finger to her lips. She falls silent, eyes shadowed by confusion. My heart is aching for her - I can feel it winding in my chest, I can feel it whispering _CatCatCat_, much the same way hers does for someone else. I swallow hard. I want nothing more than to say yes, one more chance, and twist her fingers into mine and say yes, I won, she's mine, and I want to shove it in Jade's face, a dark side of me wants her to live with that for the rest of her life, but ... but. "You're in love with her," I say slowly, my next inhale shivering and making my words break and tremble. "Forcing yourself to be with me isn't going to change that."

"But -"

"Listen. I want you to be happy, and I can't ... I will never make you as happy as she did. I will never amount to Jade."

Cat closes her eyes. "No, Tori, she hurt me -"

"She broke up with Beck."

Cat's eyes snap open so fast, it's a wonder they don't roll right out of her head. Her body has frozen almost completely, save for her fingers clenching around my knees. "What?"

"Jade broke up with Beck." I give her a weak, lost smile. "And I think you need to go find her, Cat."

She breathes so heavily it almost worries me. "But Tori, I love you. I ... love you, too."

It hurts. It pings against my heart like needles. And I'm crying again, shaking my head as tears follow the lines of my nose. "I love you, too. But you fell in love with Jade, remember? And you're always going to be. You said so yourself."

Cat's lips tremble. "I can fall again."

I shake my head. And maybe I'll regret this later, maybe I'll curse myself the next time I see Jade or Cat again, but for right now, I know that Cat being with me would only be a distraction. It would only serve to hurt everyone and I ... I care about her. Maybe I'm in love with her and maybe I'm not, but I care, and I want what's going to make her the happiest for the rest of her life, and it isn't me.

"Once you've gone up, Cat, you can only go down. I refuse to do that to you."

Her hands hold my cheeks. She kisses me, and it's wet with her tears and mine. And I know it's our last kiss, a goodbye kiss, and she whispers _thank you_ into my mouth before she leaves.

Her smell lingers in my room for a few minutes after, but first loves are never really forgotten. I fell up and now I'm hurtling toward the ground.

* * *

**A/N:** _Long chapter, my apologies. I'm sorry I'm only updating once a week lately, but school has seriously devoured my whole life. All of it. And I have these annoying little things I have to socialize with from time to time - I think they're called 'friends' or something ..._

_Anyway, review!_


	14. Chapter 14

**_|Cat|_**

It hurts_. _It all hurts. I can feel it from the crown to the very ends of my toes, pumping under the my skin like water through pipes, except the pipes are made of paper and I'm soaking through, from the inside out, and the water is dripping and I'm emptying and everything is hollow.

I halt at a stop sign, my eyes boring into the red octagon. My body and mind and heart are all torn in two, severed at the seams - one side begging me to go back, to fall into Tori's bronze arms because she's never hurt me, she's never had the chance. Her eyes are soft and her words are kind and she has this, this innocence, this streak of purity that Jade just doesn't have, and I barely gave her the time to prove to me that she was worth it. But the other side is screaming and scarred from wounds that were just beginning to heal, that Tori put band-aids over and now I've ripped them off and let them bleed all over again, except this time it's different. This time, I know they won't close. Stitches and gauze aren't going to help me anymore, not after all of this, not after how far Down I've gone.

I look over my shoulder, blinking through my tears to clear my vision. My car idles quietly as I peer down the street. I can still see her house. I wonder how much convincing it would take, how long I would have to fold at her feet to get her to take me back, if just so I wouldn't have to face Jade again. And I wonder how scared I really am, how long I've let that fear control me and how much longer I'm willing to let it do so.

Tori said she would only bring me Down, but what if she was wrong?

What if she's right?

I turn back to the road and drive on, my tires purring against the blacktop. I'm shaking and sobbing, my lungs like torn fabric and the strings are strewn on my ribs like decorations for a party that crashed. I'm crying for Tori, mourning for this beautiful thing that soaked up so much sun it popped like a swollen balloon. I'm crying for everything she could have been but my memories won't let her be. Because Tori's wise and Tori's smart and she knows me better than I'd like to admit, and Jade, too. She knows both of us with eyes that haven't seen the carnage the two of us has caused the other. She's only seen the two of us without, and maybe that's what we need to see, too. What Jade's life would be like without me and my life without her.

My heart hurls itself again my ribcage at the mere thought of not seeing Jade every day, of not being around her, of not being a part of her life even if it was just in the most minuscule way. She has brought me Up and Up and that isn't something I can let go of. Tori reminded me of that. And ... And I think I love Tori, I really think I do, and maybe one day I could have fallen the same way I did with Jade, except it never would have been Up. You only truly fall in love once and Jade happened to beat her to it.

I clench the steering wheel and press the pedal nearly to the floor, whipping through the streets. It doesn't matter how hard I would have tried to be with Tori, how desperately I would have wanted it to work, or how often I told myself that Tori would probably never hurt me the way Jade did. I had already gone too high up to come down. My heart had already made its home in Jade's hands, and even though she tore it up and littered it with scars, I know she was hurting while she did it. I know there's no way I could possibly give it up now that the damage is done. And that's the thing - people hurt each other, even the people they love. But that's the beauty of falling up and in love; learning to forgive each other, learning to keep on loving even when there are wounds to heal.

Maybe Tori is wrong. Maybe I'm making the wrong choice, and maybe Jade will twist me up and throw me down again like she did last time, but she broke up with Beck, right? That means something. That means more than anything because she would have never, ever done that a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure _what _it means, exactly, but it's something I can't ignore because maybe the Jade after Beck can even slightly resemble the Jade she was before him, when it was just us and then and we and_ JadeandCat_.

My chest expands as her name fills the space between my spine in my sternum, swirling around like a hard wind. I drive faster, trying so very hard to obey all of the traffic laws that I can remember, but it suddenly seems so very urgent to find her, to get to her right now, and so I may or may not have rolled through a few stop signs, but I'm watching for children, and small animals! I can't let myself get too carried away here. I wipe at my eyes, taking deep breaths to steady my erratic lungs. I have to be calm.

The sky rolls on above me and I glance up to see the herd of clouds passing over and once again I tell Tori _thank you_, because if she hadn't let me go, I wouldn't have left. And there's a difference, you know, between loving someone and being in love with someone. It's a small difference, and sometimes the two get confused, but I think I know what it is now. It's the difference between Tori and Jade - wanting to fall and already fallen.

Maybe Jade breaking up with Beck is completely unrelated, but Tori said - _And I think you need to go find her_ - and she's right. I do. I do because I owe that to what we used to be, to the people we were when it was just us and her bed and mine and the walls that watched us blossom into something neither of us understood, until now. Or maybe it's just me that understands it. And I can't put it into words because there just aren't any. I'm just Up. She just brought me there.

I throw my car into park outside of her house, the white building seeming to grow as I switch off the engine and fall out of the car. It's quiet. The garage door is closed and there aren't any lights on, but I can't think of anywhere else Jade would be. If she wasn't at home usually, she was with Beck, and obviously that wouldn't make much sense, now. I trudge up to the door, setting my jaw tightly as I roll my knuckles against it. I'm trying to come up with the words, my eyes flicking to the ground as I chew my knuckle. I've never been good with words. My brain can't put them in the right order fast enough for me to ever get my point across. My heart leaps unsteadily in my chest like it wants to run out of me. I really don't blame it. I place a hand over my sternum and take a deep breathe. "Calm down," I tell it, giving it a soft pat.

The door opens. I jerk my gaze up, my brain startling with confusion. Jade looks so much like her mother it's almost frightening. They have the same long, dark hair, the same piercing set of green eyes. She has soft lines around her eyes and mouth, a sharp jawline, and I wonder if this is what Jade is going to look like when she's forty. I wonder if I'll get a chance to know her when she's forty. My mouth falls open as her lips twitch up into a soft smile.

"Catarina. It's been awhile." The woman throws her thumb over her shoulder. "Jade hasn't gotten back from school yet, but she should be here soon. Did you want to come in and -"

"No." I lift my hands, shaking my head. "I'll, uh, I'll go find her. Thanks." I smile at her and spin on my heel, marching back toward my car. I struggle to get my phone out of the pocket of my dress, scrolling to find Jade. If this is the only way to find her, then so be it. I fall into my car again, backing out with one hand on the wheel. It rings a couple of times, the sound hollow and far away. "Please pick up," I mumble, and as if on command, I hear a click. I pause in Jade's driveway, waiting, my breath holding. There's a soft, shaky exhale on the other end.

"Cat?"

A hard breath rushes out of me. "Where are you?" I clutch the phone like I'm about to lose her. "Where are you at?"

There's a small silence filled with a thousand words she isn't saying, and then a breathless chuckle filters through the phone. "I was at your house."

I can feel myself moving Up so fast my foot comes off the brake. The car jerks as I slam on it, throwing it into park again. My entire torso is swelling, trying to make room for something growing and sprouting roots. "I'm at yours."

"I know."

I frown, my brow flickering as I twist in the car seat and something thuds so loudly I can't believe for a second it was my heart. It was too bold, too hard, and as I watch Jade slip out of the driver's seat of her sleek, black car, I know what it was.

It was my soul. _JadeJadeJade_.

I claw at the car handle and tear myself across the lawn, leaping over the grass. And I look up and she's smiling, her lips soft and there's teeth and it's old Jade peeking out from behind the new one, it's flashbacks and mornings spent laughing into the hollow of her ear, it's her hands learning the roads and routes of my body and it's her saying, _forever_.

We collide. It's like our hearts are trying to tear through the flesh and bone and warp around each other and she smells like a place I haven't been to in a long time, an old house I used to live in, a swingset I used to spend my afternoons on. My arms wind around her shoulders and her breath rustles over my ear, my hair, and I feel like floating up and taking her with me, folding us into the sky where clouds are the only disturbances. My lips are on her neck, her pulse hurtling against her mouth, and I can hear it again. I can feel it again. _CatCatCat_.

"Your mom said you were at Tori's," she whispers, her arms tightening around my waist. I take in a deep breath, feeling her fill the space of my lungs, flooding into my blood stream.

"I love her," I mumble, and she stiffens like stone. I hold her tighter, shaking my head into her shoulder. And I do love Tori, I know I do, and given the time I know I could have been happy, but there's a difference between what my heart says and what my soul does - falling down and falling up. "But I can't, and I need you, and she told me to find you and, Jade -" I pull back, her name stamped on my lips. I meet her eyes, the sharp green of her mother's, my fingers curling into her shoulder-blades. "I love you, okay? And - and I'm done not being with you like I used to be and I'm done with, with seeing you with Beck and you're just going to have deal with me for - for forever, like you promised, because -"

"Cat."

My teeth click shut. I meet her gaze, study her soft smile, her fingers traveling to my cheeks to crane my neck up. "I don't break my promises." She leans forward, the air buzzing, and then her eyes flick over my shoulder. She freezes, her hands rocks, and I watch her throat struggle to swallow. I tense, turning slightly to see what scared her.

He's standing in the doorway. He's glaring and tall, eyes narrowed, and this is what kept us apart before. This, him - he took away precious time.

"Jade ..." I turn back to her, her eyes still frozen on her father. They close, a deep breath filling the space between us, and then she dives forward and kisses me. It's soft and warm and so many words are in it, words I don't know the meaning of, but they flood my brain and drown out everything else. There's just her and us and this and not her father behind us or Tori beyond us or Beck between us. It's just us and it's a snapshot of our forever.

* * *

**A/N:** _So. Fluffy. Omigod~_

_So, you busy? Obviously not, if you're reading this ... which means you have plenty of time to leave a review, hey? They do make me quite happy._


	15. Chapter 15

**_|Jade|_**

"First, it's the piercings, then the tattoos, and the – the boyfriend that lives in a trailer in his parents' driveway and now – now you're trying to tell me that – now you're kissing girls on the front lawn _in front of the neighbors?"_

I stare at my hands. I can still feel Cat in them the way the remnants of chalk rest in the lines of your palms after drawing on the sidewalk. I feel like I just made a masterpiece and now everyone's walking all over it, destroying it, scuffing the carefully crafted lines with their shoes and calling it ugly.

My mom is hovering beyond the shadow of my dad, her thumb between her teeth and I can almost see the thoughts filtering over her twisting brow. I've never not liked her. She's always been neutral about most things - never taking my dad's side, but never taking mine, either. She's been indifferent about all of the things Dad gets so worked up about: my eyebrow ring, the nearly microscopic tattoo of a Jolly Roger on my right hipbone (Beck said I was too chicken, so I proved him wrong), Beck, Cat. And while for most of my life I haven't been bothered by her silence, just now, I wish she would speak up for me.

Because what happened out there – before my dad came storming down the driveway and took me by the elbow and told Cat she needed to leave so he could talk to me – it was worth speaking up for. Claiming Cat's lips as I rightfully should have so long ago in front of his eyes, under the sun, not trapped by walls that haunt me while I sleep, it was all such a _finally _moment, like watching a TV show for seasons and seasons and the two characters that have been making eyes at each other once a week for half a year have kissed and established something you've been aching for forever.

I lift my eyes. My dad is a tall guy with a broad face, a high forehead with thin, dark hair. His eyes are cold and heavy, almost permanently narrowed, especially if I'm even in his peripherals. He's a bigshot at work and thinks that formal attire should be the only attire, but the white collar of his shirt is soaked in sweat from yelling at me for the past twenty minutes and his tar colored jacket is thrown over the back of one of our black-barred dining room chairs. Chairs we never sit in. At a table we never eat at.

I've never been bothered, really, by the way we live our lives. We have always co-existed around each other, occasionally speaking in passing. We're always busy. I'm at school, I'm in plays, I'm with friends, she's at work, he's at work, they're on vacation, I'm here, they're there, and it's always been fine with me. I never needed a soft, cuddly family that watched movies on Wednesday nights and ate meals around a warm table. I had Cat instead. She was everything they weren't and everything they could never be, even if they really tried. I don't resent them for the way they chose to raise me – if they hadn't, I don't know if I would have ever met Cat, and she is a necessity when they were only convenient. The only time my father has been interested in me is when I'm doing something he deems 'wrong', and it's only then he takes time out of his busy schedule to make me worth his words.

I tune back in to his rambling, switching my ears back on.

" – gotten into you? You used to be such a nice girl –"

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes becomes a bit of a challenge. I have never been a nice girl. I flick my eyes to the window and keep my breathing steady. It'll be over soon. He'll tire himself out soon enough, and Mom will pat my back and say that he's just stressed out because of work, and I'll shrug and go on with my life. We will have awkward Christmas gatherings when I'm older and we won't talk about me and Cat and that's fine. That is just dandy with me.

Because I pushed Cat away long enough. I kept her at arm's length and filled her shoes with a dark-haired boy who loved me and I tried to love, but I had already fallen and there was no use trying to get back up. It was my dad, his icy gaze, his words of praise I never heard that made me push her out and close the doors and ignore the walls pumping her back to me and I was done with it; done with letting a parent that didn't remember my own birthday dictate who I was going to be and who I was going to be with.

My eyes fog over as I stare out the window, not seeing the street or the cars or the houses on the other side. I only see her in her yellow dress like a beam of sunlight to filter through the gray cloud that seemed to be hovering over me the past few weeks. I only see her sprinting across the lawn and crashing into my chest like she was afraid I was going to float away like a balloon, without her, so she tied the ribbon around her wrist and now if I float, she goes up, too. I see her slipping back into her car as my dad tugged me toward the house, the smallest of smiles lighting up her lips and the tips of her fingers wiggling at me from over the steering wheel. I start to smile just thinking about it, biting my cheek to keep them still.

"- see her anymore."

That snags my attention quite quickly. I jerk my head back, mirroring his narrowed gaze. "What?"

"You heard me." He wipes the back of his hand across his beading brow and stands taller. It's almost ape-like the way he spreads his shoulders, tilting his body to loom over my sitting form. "I don't want you to see her anymore."

A studded brow perks at him and then I laugh. I snort into my hand and uncross my legs, my hand flattening on the table. His face hardens, the lines around his mouth and eyes trembling almost violently. "Are you kidding me? I'm almost eighteen. You can't tell me what to do, Dad." I cock my head at him, giving him the most incredulous stare I can manage.

He huffs. Bangs his fist on the table. Whips around to glare at my unphased mother in the threshold of the dining room and then he whirls back to me, getting closer. He smells like bad cologne and Cologate Total and let me tell you, it's not a good combination. "I mean it, Jade. You said it yourself – you're almost eighteen. I think it's about time you got over your rebellious stage."

"Rebellious? You think I'm rebelling?" I can feel anger building in my throat like a flame, licking through my insides and travelling down the roads of my veins. "You not being able to handle my relationship with a girl sounds like a personal problem, Dad. Chronic ignorance, for example, and overwhelming narrow-mindedness."

He bangs the table again, rattling the false fruit in the center. "Damnit, Jade – do you just do this on purpose to upset me? Your mother?"

I shift my eyes over his shoulder. She's not looking at either of us, emotionless pale eyes drifting toward the ceiling as if she's somewhere else completely. I put on a smug smile and move back to my fuming father. "She seems fine to me."

Blue eyes sharp and razored cut through the air to my mother as he swivels around. "Joan!"

She lifts a half-hearted hand. "Don't drag me into this, Paul."

"Look at our mess of a daughter!" He hurls a hand toward me, accusing index finger leveling at my eyes. "This is not the kind of family I had in mind, this is not the kind of daughter I raised –"

Something taut in my snaps. I stand up, my fists raining down on the table. It's his temper that wound its way into my DNA as closely as the color of my eyes and the sound of my voice. It's the few things I got from him at all. He hesitates, his tongue stalling as he registers my now standing form. Our eyes lock. Something else snaps.

"You didn't raise me." Our eyes don't move, but I can see the breath rustle out of him. "Neither of you did, and I thought we were fine with that. Living our own separate lives." Only then do I let my eyes trail away from him, lingering on the profile of my mom. People tell me I look like her all the time, but all I see when I meet the reflection of my eyes in hers is a woman content with her unhappiness and I know that looks are the only thing I could ever want from this person. I don't want her apathy, her lack of determination, or her ability to settle for something so shitty. She's looking at me, eyebrows relaxed, arms crossed, and there's a silent understanding that passes through the air, something unspoken that I feel in my chest. It's almost the same way Cat makes my heart feel, only it's a different wavelength, a different message.

I turn back to my dad and lift my fists from the table. My fingers uncurl slowly, flexing out, and the sun coming in sideways from the window reminds me of Cat's dress and I feel all of the tension melt out of my bones. I let a sigh slip through my lips and meet my dad's narrowed gaze again.

"I won't bring her here if my happiness bothers you that much, but I'll see her whenever I want, and you guys are going to have to put up with your 'mess of a daughter' being in love with a girl for the rest of your lives, because she isn't going anywhere." I jut out my chin. "Okay?"

I watch his shoulders rise and fall and then he looks between my mom and me. A hand runs over his hair like that will shake the wrinkles of stress from his skin. He stares at me for a long time. He's not even breathing and I wonder what he sees in me – if he sees bits of him or bits of my mom or someone entirely different, a strange offspring not of his loins, like they had offered up the wrong baby. If I didn't so strikingly resemble the woman standing behind him, he might have pulled that card.

And then he's sighing heavily and shaking his head, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair.

"Fine."

It's all he says. He walks out of the room and his fading footsteps are heard going up the stairs. I let my back fall against the kitchen sink. Adrenaline is thick in my blood and I have to rub my hands together to keep them from shaking.

I did it. I _did _it. And it wasn't even that hard. I almost get mad – at me, for putting this off for so long, for making it bigger than it was, for making it seem impossible. For making Cat seem impossible, when she's the only possibility I have of ever really being happy.

"Good job."

I look up. Mom pushes herself off of the wall and smiles at me, nodding in my direction. It's about as maternal as the woman gets, so I nod and smile back at her as she turns on her heel and disappears into the rest of the house. I stay in the kitchen for a few minutes longer, gazing out of the window and running my fingers over my lips like I'm trying to draw Cat out of them.

And then I remember I don't have to do that anymore.

I get into my car and drive with soft music playing until I pull up to her house. She opens the door before I'm even out of the car. She's a ray of sun transcending the atmosphere as she leaps off of her porch step, a flag of red hair whipping around her like a victory march.

And as my arms circle around her waist and a soft giggle fills the hollow of my ear, I understand completely that it won't be easy. Beck's haunted eyes as I released his hand for the last time, the way Tori looked so crumpled at the bottom of the janitor's closet, my dad's icy glare from across the lawn – these are the barriers that have thrown themselves up between Cat and I. I – we have tackled all of them. The dust is under our feet and we're calling this battlefield love.

I meet her coffee-colored eyes. I could drink from them forever.

I kiss her again, under the sun, in front of a couple walking their dog and a boy on his bicycle and I swear I hear the walls of Cat's house breathe a sigh of relief.

* * *

**A/N:** _This is technically the last chapter, but I'm going to post an epilogue in Tori's POV tomorrow, probably. I'm sorry this last update took so long! I went to visit family and I just returned not a half hour ago._

_Thanks for the feedback on this story, guys! I really hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. Ciao!_


	16. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

_**|Tori|**_

I'm trying so hard to be bitter, but looking at them, it's simply not possible. Trust me, I've tried.

She's folded over Jade's shoulder, the dark-haired girl whispering something in her ear. The sun is shining on them like a spotlight, like curtains have drawn back and a magnificent play has started and the rest of us, we're just the lucky audience. We're just privileged. A yellow halo circles them and Cat is laughing, throwing her head back and the white of her throat clashes with the sunlight, trails of bright blood-red hair trickling down her scalp like an open wound.

…That kind of metaphor would make one think I was totally and completely bitter about this whole thing, but really, even as it hurts to sit from a distance and watch them coddle and touch in the middle of lunch with not a flicker of care or worry on their faces, the only prominent emotion I have at all is a distant sense of longing.

For her. For that.

I drift back to my own table, slowly, but my eyes are constantly moving back to them – that duo, that pair, too beautiful to not be on television, they blind the courtyard and everyone is staring at some point or another. There isn't any fighting it. They just … they do that. They've done that for the past few months, since they strode through the door arm in arm for the first time, Cat with her tongue between her teeth and her eyes down, a flushed ruby to her cheeks and Jade pressing her lips to the other girl's temple before they separated.

I had had to lean against the lockers for a few minutes and remember how to breathe. My hands had felt empty and in that hallway full of gossiping girls and rigid-in-the-pants boys I was completely and totally alone.

It took awhile, but looking at them finally became easier. I could stare at them like I am now without feeling like running away and hiding, without wanting to wipe Cat clear out of my memory and start over somewhere else. I toyed with the idea of transferring back to my old school only to realize that not seeing her at all was worse than seeing her with someone else. And I can't hate Jade or even dislike her, as reasonable as that could be. Jade and I were never in a war. She won Cat long before I entered the fray. I was just a pillow Cat could rest on until her former bed was repaired.

I never stood a chance, so to expect anything other than this would have been a waste of my time.

…Still.

Andre's warm, brown arm bumps mine as he eats and laughs and talks. Beck is sitting with us. He's laughing, too. It was awkward at first – he stared at them more than the rest of us – and he had the same look in his eyes that I figured I had; like we had both lost something we never had to begin with. Sometimes, I touch his palm or his wrist or his back, and he looks at me with these lost, soft eyes and he blinks like he sees it in me, too.

Maybe, one day, I'll tell him. Because Beck is a good person and deserves it.

And I'm a good person. And I deserve it.

But Beck, like me, is a lot looser now. His eyes dart to them as much as mine do, but they always come back, and he does a little shift of his shoulders like he's finally shaking Jade off, just like I'm shaking off Cat. And I know the two of them knew that they were going to hurt people by doing this, by being that, but I know if I was Jade, if Cat was mine, I would have done the same thing a thousand times over if I had to.

I'm not jealous of Jade. Not really. Sometimes, when I watch Jade's fingers linger on the curve of Cat's neck, the slope of her hip, the thumb-sized dip behind her ear, I imagine what it's like to be feeling those precious spots of her. But it's not Jade I'm jealous of – it's Jade's hands and Jade's mouth, the parts of Jade that get to touch Cat. Never Jade herself.

And, really, I'm closer to Cat than I've ever been, because now I understand why she fell apart so quickly, why the strings and threads holding her together had unraveled with such alarming speed. Because from this angle, from these pairs of shoes, watching someone you love kiss someone else in the halo of the sun is the worst kind of torture. I know what it feels like to be Cat, to watch from the other side and not being able to do anything but wave occasionally and smile even if it denies everything inside of me.

I tell myself it will get easier. It has to. If you've fallen to the bottom, the only way you can go from there is up.

The bell rings. I take my untouched food to the garbage and dump it, rubbing my knuckles against my temple as I start to stroll back toward the school. Andre and Beck and Robbie walk in a line in front of me, talking, laughing, and I think that soon, I'll be able to feel like that again. Open.

"Hey, Tori."

My heel scuffs on the pavement. I swivel, eyebrows already raised. Jade is squinting, one hand hooked on the loop of her black jeans, the other being held captive behind her by a beaming Cat. I give a vague smile at the two of them as I step forward. My heart pings, trying to decipher the waves coming off of them, but all I see is innocence gleaming in a pair of brown and green eyes.

"Yeah?" I cross my arms on instinct, and then realize how defensive I look. I let them fall. Open. I want to be open again. I meet Jade's eyes first before travelling to Cat's. She bites her lip, head ducking slightly, but she holds my gaze, soft brown eyes simmering under black lashes.

_I love you too, _she had said, sobbing into my lap.

And I let her go.

I wonder if she regrets saying it. Feeling it. Leaving.

Because I still don't know if I regret letting her leave.

Jade shifts, narrowed eyes moving toward Cat over her shoulder before moving back to me. The two are almost completely at a standstill, yet they seem to be moving in sync. They breathe the same tempo. They tilt with the wind, their fingers fit snugly in the spaces of the others hands; a painting, two figures planned out a hundred times over before the final product was put on display. Their lines match up perfectly.

"I've been meaning to say – I've wanted, to, you know, we haven't talked in a couple of months and I just wanted to, uh, let you know that –"

"She's trying to say thank you." Cat says from behind her, golden laughter slipping through her teeth to melt in the sun. It's the same easy, knowing way my mom speaks to my dad, the old couple down the street from us, twins – they know each other so well, back and front, side to side.

Jade's free hand untangles from her belt loop and slips into the front of her hair, pulling it back, green eyes finally leveling with mine. She nods, lips pursed. "Yeah. Thank you."

"For what?" I can't stop the dumb question from falling out of my mouth. I didn't do anything. Jade had Cat before I even existed to them. This was all just a matter of time. An object in motion tends to stay in motion …

"For bringing her back to me." Jade's grin is soft and lazy, the slightest toss of her head indicating the smiling Cat behind her.

My heart swells. I don't know if it's from happiness or jealousy. Not of Jade, but of her hand in Cat's, and Cat's smell on her, and the way the two align so perfectly, like voices harmonizing.

I smile at them. I'm happy for Cat, at least, because the sparkling in her eyes when she looks at Jade is something I always wanted her to have and I simply can't give that to her. I might have relit the fire, but I didn't start it. I didn't keep it burning.

And then Jade slips her hand out of Cat's and her arms are swinging around my neck. I freeze, blinking over Jade's shoulder to a laughing Cat. I laugh, too, and touch Jade's back, and when she pulls away her eyes are serious.

"Tell anyone that this happened and I will –"

"Do nothing," Cat interjects, linking her elbow with Jade's and tugging her toward the open school doors. "C'mon, Tori. We're going to be late!"

They walk for a few paces before I follow. I look at their arms, Cat's tilting head, their forms highlighted in the sunlight.

And I love Cat. And Cat loves Jade. Jade loves her. And, hopefully, I'll sever the triangle before I'm as lost as Cat was, before falling feels like drowning. Hopefully, first love isn't the only love, or the last one.

I step into my school and eyes spin to glue on Cat and Jade, fingers entwined, laughing their way down the hallway. I watch Jade's dark hair and Cat's red-velvet disappear around a corner.

She's happy, and right now, that's enough for me to get by.

* * *

**A/N:** _...and, scene!_

_To review or not review, that is the question ... but I think we all know the answer._


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